Xibrar^g  of  Ibistortc  XTbeoIog^ 

EDITED   BY   THE  REV.   WM.   C.   PIERCY,   M.A. 

DEAN  AHD   CHAPLAIN   OF   WHITELANDS  COLLEGE 


MYSTICISM   IN  CHRISTIANITY 

W.    K.    FLEMING,    M.A.,    B.D. 


^ 


LIBRARY    OF    HISTORIC    THEOLOGY 


Edited  by  the  Rev.  Wm.  C,  PIERCY,  M.A. 

Each  Volume,  Demy  8»o,  Cloth,  Red  Burnished  Top,  5s,  mi. 

VOLUMES   NOW    READY. 

MARRIAGE  IN  CHURCH  AND  STATE, 

By  the  Rev.  T.  A.  Lacey,  M.A.  (Warden  of  the  London  Diocesan  Penitentiary). 

THE  BUILDING  UP  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

By  the  Rev.  Canon  R.  B.  Girdlestonk,  M..\, 
CHRISTIANITY  AND  OTHER   FAITHS.     An  Essay  in  Comparative  Religion. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  St.  Clair  Tisdall,  D.D, 
THE  CHURCHES  IN  BRITAIN.  Vols.  I.  and  //. 

By  the  Rev.  .\lfred  Plummer,  D.D.  (formerly  Master  of  University  College,  Durham). 

CHARACTER  AND  RELIGION. 

By  the  Rev.  the  Hon.  Edward  Lyttelton,  M.A,    (Head  Master  of  Eton  College). 

MISSIONARY  METHODS,  ST.  PAUL'S  OR  OURS  ? 
By  the  Rev.  RotAND  Allen,  M.A, 

THE  RULE  OF  FAITH  AND  HOPE. 

By  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Ottley,  D.D.  (Canon  of  Christ  Church,  and   Regius  Professor 
of  Pastoral  Theology  in  the  University  of  Oxford). 
THE  RULE  OF  LIFE  AND  LOVE. 

By  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Ottley,  D.D. 
THE  CREEDS  :    THEIR  HISTORY,  NATURE  AND  USE. 

By  the  Rev.  Harold  Smith,  M.A.  (Lecturer  at  the  London  College  of   Divinity), 

THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  ST.  PAUL  (Hulsean  Prize  Essay). 

By  the  Rev.S.  Nowell  Rostron,  M.A.  (Late  Principal  of  St.  John's  Hall,  Durham). 
MYSTICISM  IN  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  the  Rev.  VV.  K.  Fleming,  M.A.,  B.D. 
The  following  works  are  in  Preparation : — 


THE  PRESENT  RELATIONS  OF 
SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 

By  the  Rev.  Professor  T.  G.  Bonney,  D.Sc. 
ARCHAEOLOGY  OF  THE 
OLD  TESTAMENT. 

By  Professor  Edodard  Naville,  D.CL, 
RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION:     ITS 
PAST,   PRESENT,  AND    FUTURE. 

By  the  Rev.  Prebendary  B.  Reynolds. 
THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL. 
By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Sparrow  Simpson,  D.D. 
COMMON   OBJECTIONS 
TO   CHRISTIANITY. 

By  the  Rev.  C.  L.  Drawbridge,  M.A. 
THE  CHURCH  OUTSIDE  THE  EMPIRE. 
By  the  Rev.  C.  R.  Davey  Biggs,  D.D. 
THE  NATURE  OF  FAITH  AND  THE 
CONDITIONS  OF  ITS    PROSPERITY. 

By  the  Rev.  P.  N.  VVaggett,  M.A. 
THE  ETHICS  OF  TEMPTATION. 

By  the  Ven.  E.  E.  Holmes,  MA 


AUTHORITY  AND  FREETHOUGHT 
IN  THE  MIDDLE   AGES. 

By  the  Rev.  F.  W.  Bdsseix,  D.D. 

EARLY  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE. 

By  the  Rev.  Wm.  C.  Pikrcy,  M.A. 

GOD  AND  MAN,  ONE  CHRIST. 

By  the  Rev.  Charles  E.  Raven,  MA, 

GREEK  THOUGHT  AND 
CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  K.  Mozmy,  M.A. 

THE  BOOKS  OF  THE 
APOCRYPHA:  THEIR  CONTENTS, 
CHARACTER,  AND  TEACHING. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  O.  E.  Oesterley,  D.D. 

THE  GRE.\T  SCHISM  BETWEEN 
THE  EAST  AND  WEST. 

By  the  Rev.  F.  J.  Foakes-Jackson,  D.D. 
THE  PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL  IN 
OLD  TESTAMENT  HISTORY. 

By  the  Rev.  A.  Troblsira,  D.D, 


Full  particulars  of  this  Library  may  be  obtained  from  the  Publisher. 
LONDON:     ROBERT    SCOTT. 


.IMN  is^  1914 


MYSTICISM 
IN   CHRISTIANITY 


BY  THE   REV. 

W.  K.   FLEMING,  M.A.,  B.D. 

OP  THE  COLLEGE  OF  ALLHALLOWS  BARKING  E.C. 


NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

FLEMING    H.    REVELL    COMPANY 

1913 


EDITOR'S  GENERAL  PREFACE 

IN  no  branch  of  human  knowledge  has  there  been  a  more 
lively  increase  of  the  spirit  of  research  during  the  past  few 
years  than  in  the  study  of  Theology. 

Many  points  of  doctrine  have  been  passing  afresh  through 
the  crucible  ;  "  re-statement  "  is  a  popular  cry  and,  in  some 
directions,  a  real  requirement  of  the  age ;  the  additions  to 
our  actual  materials,  both  as  regards  ancient  manuscripts  and 
archaeological  discoveries,  have  never  before  been  so  great  as 
in  recent  years  ;  linguistic  knowledge  has  advanced  with  the 
fuller  possibiUties  provided  by  the  constant  addition  of  more 
data  for  comparative  study;  cuneiform  inscriptions  have  been 
deciphered,  and  forgotten  peoples,  records,  and  even  tongues, 
revealed  anew  as  the  outcome  of  diligent,  skilful  and  devoted 
study. 

Scholars  have  specialized  to  so  great  an  extent  that  many  con- 
clusions are  less  speculative  than  they  were,  while  many  more 
aids  are  thus  available  for  arriving  at  a  general  judgment ;  and, 
in  some  directions  at  least,  the  time  for  drawing  such  general 
conclusions,  and  so  making  practical  use  of  such  speciahzed 
research,  seems  to  have  come,  or  to  be  close  at  hand. 

Many  people,  therefore,  including  the  large  mass  of  the  parochial 
clergy  and  students,  desire  to  have  in  an  accessible  form  a  review 
of  the  results  of  this  flood  of  new  Ught  on  many  topics  that  are  of 
living  and  vital  interest  to  the  Faith ;  and,  at  the  same  time, 
"  practical "  questions — by  which  is  really  denoted  merely  the 
application  of  faith  to  Ufe  and  to  the  needs  of  the  day — have 
certainly  lost  none  of  their  interest,  but  rather  loom  larger  than 
ever  if  the  Church  is  adequately  to  fulfil  her  Mission. 

It  thus  seems  an  appropriate  time  for  the  issue  of  a  new  series 
of  theological  works,  which  shall  aim  at  presenting  a  general 
survey  of  the  present  position  of  thought  and  knowledge  in 
various  branches  of  the  wide  field  which  is  included  in  the  study 
of  divinity. 

V 


vi  EDITOR'S   GENERAL    PREFACE 

The  Library  of  Historic  Theology  is  designed  to  supply  such 
a  series,  written  by  men  of  known  reputation  as  thinkers  and 
scholars,  teachers  and  divines,  who  are,  one  and  all,  firm  upholders 
of  the  Faith. 

It  will  not  deal  merely  with  doctrinal  subjects,  though  pro- 
minence will  be  given  to  these  ;  but  great  importance  will  be 
attached  also  to  history — the  sure  foundation  of  all  progressive 
knowledge — and  even  the  more  strictly  doctrinal  subjects  wiU 
be  largely  dealt  with  from  this  point  of  view,  a  point  of  view  the 
value  of  which  in  regard  to  the  "  practical  "  subjects  is  too 
obvious  to  need  emphasis. 

It  would  be  clearly  outside  the  scope  of  this  series  to  deal  with 
individual  books  of  the  Bible  or  of  later  Christian  wTitings,  with 
the  hves  of  individuals,  or  with  merely  minor  (and  often  highly 
controversial)  points  of  Church  governance,  except  in  so  far  as 
these  come  into  the  general  review  of  the  situation.  This  de- 
tailed study,  invaluable  as  it  is,  is  already  abundant  in  many 
series  of  commentaries,  texts,  biographies,  dictionaries  and  mono- 
graphs, and  would  overload  far  too  heavily  such  a  series  as  the 
present. 

The  Editor  desires  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  that  the 
various  contributors  to  the  series  have  no  responsibiUty  whatso- 
ever for  the  conclusions  or  particular  views  expressed  in  any 
volumes  other  than  their  own,  and  that  he  himself  has  not  felt 
that  it  comes  within  the  scope  of  an  editor's  work,  in  a  series  of 
this  kind,  to  interfere  with  the  personal  views  of  the  writers.  He 
must,  therefore,  leave  to  them  their  full  responsibihty  for  their 
own  conclusions. 

Shades  of  opinion  and  diflFerences  of  judgment  must  exist,  if 
thought  is  not  to  be  at  a  standstill — petrified  into  an  unpro- 
ductive fossil ;  but  while  neither  the  Editor  nor  all  their  readers 
can  be  expected  to  agree  with  every  point  of  view  in  the  details 
of  the  discussions  in  aU  these  volumes,  he  is  convinced  that  the 
great  principles  which  lie  behind  every  volume  are  such  as  must 
conduce  to -the  strengthening  of  the  Faith  and  to  the  glory  of 
God. 

That  this  may  be  so  is  the  one  desire  of  Editor  and  contributors 
ahke. 

W.  C.  P. 

London  iqii. 


PREFACE 

THE  object  of  the  following  pages  is  to  provide  an 
introduction  to  the  study  of  mystical  thought  as  it 
has  developed  itself  within^  the_confines  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  Interest  in  Mysticism  has  in  recent  times  become  so 
pronounced  and  wide-spread  that  it  is  hoped  that,  even 
amongst  the  various  and  excellent  works  which  have  ap- 
peared in  response  to  that  interest,  room  may  perhaps  be 
found  for  an  attempt  to  present  the  subject  in  its  historical 
sequence,  and  in  such  a  fonn  as  may  best  meet  the  wants  of  the 
general  reader.  My  grateful  thanks  are  due  to  the  Dean  of  St . 
Paul's,  by  whose  kind  permission  I  am  enabled  to  quote, 
amongst  the  definitions  of  Mysticism  given,  several  of 
those  which  he  has  collected  in  Appendix  A  of  his  "  Chris- 
tian Mysticism  ",  as  well  as  to  avail  myself  generally  of  the 
help  afforded  by  his  invaluable  works  on  the  subject ;  and, 
amongst  other  works  consulted,  I  wish  to  express  my  special 
indebtedness  to  Baron  von  Hiigel's  "  Mystical  Elements  in 
Rehgion",  Professor  Rufus  Jones'  "Studies  in  Mystical 
ReHgion",  Miss  Underbill's  "Mysticism",  and  Fr.  Sharpe's 
recent  book,   "  Mysticism  :   Its  True  Nature  and  Value ". 

W.  K.  FLEMING. 
January,  1913. 


vu 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER    I 


What  is  Mysticism  ? 


CHAPTER    II 

The  Mystical  Element  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles     .       26 

CHAPTER    III 

The  Montanists,  the  Gnostics,  and  the  Alexandrines  .       47 

CHAPTER    IV 
Neo-Platonism  ........       61 

CHAPTER    V 
The  Influence  of  Neo-Platonism  in  Christianity  .         .       77 

CHAPTER    VI 
Three  Types  of  Medieval  Mysticism      ....       98 

CHAPTER    VII 

The  German  Mystics  of  the  Middle  Ages      .         .         .1x8 

iz 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER    VIII 

English  and  Italian  Mystics  .  .  .         .  -144 

CHAPTER    IX 

Spanish  and  French  Mystics  .         .         .         .         .         -159 

CHAPTER    X 

Post-Reformation  Mysticism  in  England — Browne  and 

Traherne  ........     178 

CHAPTER    XI 

Post-Reformation  Mysticism  in  England — The  Caroline 

Poets  and  the  Cambridge  Platonists       .  .  .     194 

CHAPTER    XII 
Puritan  Mystics — Bunyan  and  Fox        .         .         .         .213 

CHAPTER    XIII 
Behmen  and  Law    .         .  ......     231 

CHAPTER    XIV 
Modern  Mysticism  ......  .         .     245 

Bibliography 265 

Indices  ..........     269 


MYSTICISM 
IN     CHRISTIANITY 

CHAPTER   I 

What  is  Mysticism  ? 

NOT  many  years  ago  some  apology  would  have  been 
needed  for  an  attempt  to  sketch  the  history  and 
development  of  the  spiritual  experience  and  doctrines  of 
Mysticism  in  the  life  of  Christianity.  Of  late  years,  however, 
the  sound  of  the  word  Mysticism  has  been  much  in  the  air. 
After  long  neglect,  scarcely  broken  by  the  appearance  of 
Vaughan's  cross-grained,  but  well-informed  and  useful 
"  Hours  with  the  Mystics,"  interest  in  them  and  their  teach- 
ing has  re-awakened  with  a  vengeance.  Dean  Inge's 
invaluable  Bampton  Lectures,  which  at  present  may 
be  said  to  constitute  the  necessary  text-book  on  the  subject, 
Miss  Underhill's  copious  and  intimate  work  "  Mysticism," 
and  Baron  von  Hiigel's  commentary  on  the  hfe  of  St.  Cathe- 
rine of  Genoa,  have  been  accompanied  by  a  long  series  of 
lesser  books,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  deahng  with  special 
aspects  of  the  same  theme,  or  working  it  out  through  its 
biographical  features.  This  sudden  output  of  mystical 
books  is  a  striking  phenomenon,  if  we  look  on  it  in  the  Hght 
of  supply  answering  demand.  It  indicates  a  certain  state 
of  the  public  mind,  a  desire — rather  restless  and  incoherent, 

M.C.  1  B 


2  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

it  is  true,  but  still  a  desire — for  the  essential  truths  of  life 
and  the  mysteries  that  underUe  its  surface.  It  shews  in 
some  degree  a  reaction  from  materialism  and  such  vogues  as 
the  gospel  of  "  push."  Of  course  the  character  of  the  supply 
is  often  far  less  satisfactory  than  the  fact  of  the  demand.  All 
is  not  Mysti'^ism  that  professes  the  name.  But  the  true 
vcirlety — what  in  Germany  would  be  called  "  der  Mystik  ", 
as  apart  from  "  ?.Iysticismus  "--is  well  able  to  take  care  of 
itself  and  of  its  secret,  even  though  its  reputation  may  be 
injured  by  people  who  go  by  hearsay,  or  who  mistake  for  it 
its  degradations  of  emotionalism  or  fanaticism. 

The  truth  is  that  the  name  Mysticism  itself  does  need 
apology.  It  has  labelled  many  things,  and  not  all  of  them 
are  good.  The  subject  stands  sorely  in  need  of  something 
like  the  German  distinctions.  "  Isms  "  too  often  are  noxious ; 
most  are  suspicious.  They  usually  imply  either  the  stiffen- 
ing and  stereotyping  of  some  principle  of  life  and  conduct 
into  a  mechanical  system,  or  its  cheapening  and  debase- 
n'ent  to  lesser  ends  and  uses.  Or  they  suggest  the  sound  of 
a  "  fad  ".  We  find  as  a  fact  three  accusations  quite  com- 
monly brought  against  Mys'icism,  which  correspond  loosely 
to  the  disadvantages  that  attach  to  "  isms  "  in  general. 
These  accusations  are  that  Mysticism  deals  in  unsafe  and 
presumptuous  speculation  ;  'or  that  it  encourages  a  sort  of 
extravagant,  unhealthy,  hysterical  self-hypnotism ;  or 
that  it  is  merely  quasi-spiritual  feeling,  vague,  dreamy  and 
unpractical. 

Perhaps  we  shall  best  begin  by  dealing  with  the  last  of 
these  charges,  for  it  will  bring  us  to  close  quarters  with  our 
subject.  That  which  is  vague  and  dreamy  is  not  usually 
susceptible  of  precise  definition.  Yet  Mysticism  has  en- 
joyed and  suffered — both  are  true — a  large  number  of  defini- 
tions. If  we  collect  and  examine  some  of  these,  it  may  be 
possible  to  construct  a  notion  of  what  Mysticism  is  not,  and 
what  it  is,  and  so  to  answer  the  other  two  objections. 


DEFINITIONS  3 

Ewald  sa>'5,  "  Mystical  theology  "...."  is  the  crav- 
ing_to  be  united  again  with  God."  Pfleiderer  ;  "  Mysti"^ 
cism  is  the  immediate  feeling  of  the  unity  of  the  self 
with  God  ..  .  .  the  endeavour  to  fix  the  immediateness 
__of  the  Hfe  in  God  as  such,  as  abstracted  from  aU  inter- 
vening helps  and  channels  whatsoever."  Lasson :  "  It 
is  the  assertion  of  an  intuition  which  transcends  the 
temporal  categories  of  the  understanding.  .  .  ,  Mysticism 
is  not  content  with  symbolic  knowledge,  and  aspires  to 
^ee  the  Absolute  by  pure  spiritual  apprehension."  He 
adds,  "  Nothing  can  be  more  perverse  thari  to  accuse 
Mysticism  of  vagueness.  Its  danger  is  rather  an  over- 
valuing of  reason  and  knowledge."  We  may  take  two 
French  definitions,  the  first  latently  hostile,  as  is  shewn 
by  one  question-begging  term,  the  second  weak  through 
its  tendency,  common  with  French  thinkers,  to  connect 
Mysticism  with  outward  physical  phenomena,  but  each  in 
its  way  important.  "  Mysticism  ",  writes  Victor  Cousin^  "  is 
the  pretension  to  know  God  without  interrnediary,  and,  so 
to  speak,  face  to  face.  For  Mysticism,  whatever  is  between 
God  and  us  hides  Him  from  us."  Ribet  says,  "  It  is  a  super- 
natural drawing  of  the  soul  towards  God  in  which  the  soul 
is  passive,  resulting  in  an  inward  illumination  and  caress  ; 
these  supersede  thought,  surpass  all  human  effort,  and  are 
able  to  have  over  the  body  an  influence  (retentissement) 
marvellous  and  irresistible."  Coming  to  thinkers  in  our 
own  midst,  we  find  Professor  Seth  Pringle-Pattison  writing, 
"  The  thought  most  iir' ensel}"  present  to  the  mystic  is  that 
of  a  supreme,  all  pervading  and  indwelling  Power,  in  Whom 
all  things  are  one  "  [and]  "  the  possibiUty  of  direct  inter- 
course with  this  Being  of  beings  ;  ,  .  God  ceases  to  be  an 
object,  and  becomes  an  experience."  Professor  Caird 
declares  Mysticism  to  be  "  reUgion  in  its  most  concentrated 
and  exclusive  form  ;  it  is  the  attitude  of  the  mind  in  which 
all  other  relations  are  swallowed  up  in  the  relation  of  the 


4  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

soul  to  God."  ^  The  poet,  Coventry  Patmore,  declares, 
"  What  the  world  calls  Mysticism  is  the  science  of  ultimates 
.  .  .  the  science  of  self-evident  reality,  which  cannot  be 
*  reasoned  about '  because  it  is  the  object  of  pure  reason  or 
perception.  The  Babe  ...  at  its  mother's  breast  and 
the  Lover  .  .  .  are  the  types  and  princes  of  mystics  ".■ 
Valuable  as  coming  from  one  who  would  not  readily  be  sus- 
pected of  sympathy  with  the  mystical  experience  is  Jowett's 
definition.  "  By  mysticism  we  mean  not  the  extravagance 
of  an  erring  fancy,  but  the  concentration  of  reason  in  feeUng, 
the  enthusiastic  love  of  the  Good,  the  True,  the  One." 
Charles  Kingsley  introduces  us  to  a  considerable  phase  or 
department  of  mysticism  in  one  of  his  letters  :  "  The  great 
Mysticism  is  the  belief  which  is  becoming  every  day  stronger 
with  me  that  all  symmetrical  natural  objects  are  types  of 
some  spiritual  truth  or  existence  ...  all  day  glimpses  of 
that  other  world,  floating  motes  from  that  inner  transcend- 
ental life,  have  been  floating  over  me  .  .  .  The  earth  is 
the  next  greatest  fact  to  that  of  God's  existence  ",  This 
approaches  to  ;Recejac's,  "  Mysticism  is  the  tendency  to 
approach  the  Absolute  morally,  and  by  means  of  symbols  ", 
though  the  latter  method  can  never  be  more  than  a  tempera- 
mental phase  of  Mysticism. 

We  cannot  leave  the  field  of  definition,  very  partially 
explored  though  not  without  a  selective  purpose,  without 
noticing  Professor  James'  famous  "  four  marks,  which, 
when  an  experience  has  them,  may  justify  us  in  calling  it 
mystical".*  These  are  (i)  Ineffability.  The  experience 
cannot  be  imparted  or  transferred  to  another.  Again  to 
quote  Patmore,  "  By  this  you  may  know  vision ;  that  it 
is  not  what  you  expected,  or  even  what  you  could  have 

^  The  above  definitions  are  quoted  from  the  interesting  collection 
cited  by  Dean  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  Appendix  A . 
*  The  Rod,  the  Root,  and  the  Flower,  p.  39. 
3  Varieties  oj  Religious  Experience,  p.  380. 


JAMES'   "FOUR  MARKS"  5 

imagined :  and  that  it  is  never  repeated  ".  (2)  Noetic  quality. 
"  Mystical  states  are  states  of  knowledge  .  .  .  and  inarticu- 
late as  they  remain,  carry  with  them  as  a  rule  a  curious  sense 
of  authority  for  after-time  ".  To  these  he  adds  as  lesser, 
though  usual,  marks,  (3)  Transiency  ;  even  memory  can  but 
imperfectly  reproduce  such  states,  though  when  they  recur 
they  are  recognized — a  vividly  accurate  bit  of  diagnosis  ; 
and  (4)  Passivity  :  the  subject  feels  as  if  in  the  grasp  of  a 
superior  power.  It  is  curious  that  Miss  Underbill,  in  her 
remarkable  work  on  Mysticism,  finds  it  necessary  to  raise 
objections  to  these  four  "  marks  "  of  Professor  James, ^ 
which,  although  they  do  not  constitute  a  complete  analysis 
of  the  mystical  consciousness,  are  nevertheless  authentic 
characteristics  so  far  as  they  go.  It  is  surely  needless, 
for  instance,  for  her  to  protest  that  "  true  mysticism 
Js  active  and  practical,  not  passive  and  theoretical ".  Every 
true  mystic  would  assert  it  to  be  both  ;  there  is  no  contra- 
diction between  Professor  James'  "  passivity "  and  the 
working  out — as  its  direct  result,  indeed, — of  the  most 
practically  beneficent  of  lives.  As  he  says  himself,  "  Mystical 
states  .  .  .  modify  the  inner  life  ",  and  by  consequence  the 
outer  also,  and  so  the  history  of  the  mystics  is  very  largely 
the  history  of  practical  workers  and  reformers.  Then 
again,  Miss  Underbill's  statement  that  the  mystic  is  in  no 
way  concerned  with  the  visible  universe — "  the  mystic 
brushes  aside  that  universe  even  in  its  most  supernormal 
manifestations  "  * — would  'seem  to  be  wholly  beside  the 
mark.  The  place  that  Symbolism  has  held  in  the  system  of 
certain  mystics,  from  St.  John  downwards,  and  the  peculiar 
snare  of  Mysticism,  the  temptation  to  Pantheism,  are  suffi- 
cient to  disprove  it.  But  Mis?  Underhill  in  her  own  final 
analysis  of  the  word  echoes  one  important  definition  of 
Mysticism  already  noticed,   "it  is  the  art  of  establishing 

1  E.  Underbill :    Mysticism,  p.  96.  *  lb. 


6  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

man's  conscious  relations  with  the  Absolute  "  ;  *  she  la}^  an 
entirely  right  empliasit:  on  iL  as  "  that  organic  process  which 
involves  the  perfect  consummation  of  the  Love  of  God  "  ; 
and  she  adds  one  element  of  mysticism  which  may  fairly  be 
claimed  as  its  d^erentia,  but  which  as  debatable  matter 
must  be  discussed  further  on  ;  "  the  living  union  ^^dth  the 
One  "  is  a  process  "  entaiUng  .  .  .  the  liberation  of  a  new, 
or  rather  latent,  form  of  consciousness,  which  imposes  on 
the  self  the  condition  which  is  sometimes  inaccurately  caUed 
'  ecstasy ',  but  is  better  named  the  Unitive  State  ".  ^ 

It  is  fair  to  remember,  in  passing,  that  Mysticism  has 
been  adversely  defined  as  v/ell,  'ven  by  those  who  are  under 
noi'j'.  i'l  Lhc  oidinary  misapprehensions  as  to  the  meaning 
of  the  term.  Professor  Seth  Pringle-Pa+tisor  considers 
Mysticism  to  be  haunted  b^-  the  peril  of  Tantheism,  and  to 
issue  naturally  in  Quietism.  Victor  Cousin  criticises  it  as 
substituting  "  ecstasy  for  reason,  rapture  for  philosophy  ". 
Harnack's  dictum  that  "  Mysticism  is  rationalism  applied 
to  a  sphere  above  reason  "  is  probably  well  known,  and 
equally  well  known  should  be  I^ean  Inge's  comment  that 
the  words  "  rationahsm  "  and  "  reason  "  in  the  sentence 
should  be  transposed.  Again,  Hermann  and  the  Ritschlian 
school  in  general  are  bitter  again^ ,  the  myst'cs,  and  dis- 
count internal  experience  of  the  Christ  compared  with  the 
Christ-picture  presented  to  the  mind  by  the  Gospel-history. 
That  there  is  some  ground  for  suspicion  of  the  attitude  adopted 
by  some  mystics  towards  the  historic  Christ,  and  even  with 

1  But  it  is  singular  again  that  in  the  same  paragraph  this  writer 
should  assert  that  "  mysticism  is  not  a  philosophy  ".  It  is  certainly 
very  much  more  than  a  philosophy,  for,  as  Queen  Christina  of 
Sweden  observed,  "  Philosophy  neither  changes  nor  corrects  a 
man  "  ;  but  a  philosophy,  all  the  same,  it  cannot  escape  being. 
Cf.  Dean  Inge,  paraphrasing  Van  Hartmann  {Christian  Mysticism, 
P-337). "  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  Absolute,  an  essential 
theme  of  philosophy,  can  only  be  mystically  apprehended  ". 

2  Underhill  :    Mysticism,  p.  yO. 


WHAT  MYSTICISM   IS  NOT  7 

regard  to  the  Christ-fact  itself,  will  be  seen  later.  R.  A. 
Vaughan,  in  his  curious  but  indispensable  book,  snarls  at 
the  very  thing  that  attracts  him,  as  "  that  form  of  error 
which  mistakes  for  Divine  manifestation  the  operations  of  a 
merely  human  faculty  ".  James  I^inton  tells  us  that  Mystic- 
ism is  "  an  assertion  of  a  means  of  knowing  that  must  not  be 
tried  by  ordinary  rules  of  evidence  ;  the  claiming  of  authority 
for  our  own  impressions  ".  As  for  Vaughan,  he  somewhat 
lessened  the  force  of  his  hostile  verdict  by  recording,  in  a 
kind  of  fascinated  fashion,  all  the  operations  of  that  "  merely 
human  faculty "  whose  nature  by  the  way  he  never 
explains,  and  Hinton's  words  sound  very  like  a  claim 
on  the  part  of  the  colour-blind  to  judge  of  the  properties 
of  red  and  green,  a  claim  at  least  oblivious  of  the  poet's 
words,  "  Nothmg  worthy  proving  can  be  proven,  nor  yet 
disproven  ".^ 

Now  the  definitions  given  will  at  least  help  us  to  dismiss 
from  our  minds  the  notion  that  Mysticism  is  a  something 
nebulous  and  vague.  Not  that  a  mere  number  of  defini- 
tions would  do  that  of  themselves.  They  might  be  mutually 
destructive  by  contradicting  each  other ;  and  we  cannot 
fail  to  have  noticed  certain  divergences  of  opinion  even  in 
those  we  have  reviewed.  But  there  is  a  striidiig  repetition 
or  agreement  of  ideas  on  certain  points,  and  it  is  fair  to 
construct  out  of  these  one  or  two  important  results  as  to  the 
question  :  What  is  Mysticism  ?  First,  we  are  enabled  to 
dismiss  wrong  perceptions  on  the  subject,  (i)  Mysticism 
is  not  equivalent  to  Symbolism  merely,  though  certain 
mystics  have  employed  Symbolic  methods  of  teaching ; 
still  less  has  it  anything  to  do  with  Allegory.  Bunyan  was 
both  a  mystic  and  an  allegoric t,  but  his  m5;sticism  is  de- 
ducible  from  the  "  Grace  Abounding  "  rather  than  from  the 
"  Pilgrim's  Progress  ".  (2)  Mysticism  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  occult  pursuits,  magic  and  the  Uke,  although  the 
*  Tennyson  :    The  Ancient  Sage. 


8  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

successors  of  the  great  Plotinus,  it  is  true,  and  others  in 
later  times,  lost  their  way,  and  floundered  into  this  particu- 
lar morass.  (3)  Nor  has  it  any  connexion  ^^dth  miracle- 
working  and  the  like  ;  for  this  mistake  modern  Roman 
CathoUc  hagiographies  are  largely  responsible.  (4)  Although 
mystics  have  frequently  had  visions,  and  "  vision  "  is  a  word 
of  frequent  and  warrantable  vogue  amongst  them.  Mysticism 
is  not  the  dreaming  of  dreams,  not  dreaminess  at  all  in  fact. 
The  occurrence  of  visions  was  always  assigned  to  a  low  place 
in  the  mystical  scale  of  ascent,  and  was  looked  upon  rather 
in  the  nature  of  an  encouragement  vouchsafed  to  beginners. 
Plotinus  gave  a  definite  sphere  in  his  scale  of  spiritual 
advancement  to  the  exercise  of  social  and  civic  duties,  and 
the  German  medieval  mystic,  Eckhart,  ranked  Martha 
above  Mary  on  the  mystical  grade.  Indeed,  mystics  have, 
more  commonly  than  not,  been  known  as  very  practical 
men  and  women. 

Perhaps  it  is  necessary  to  add  one  thing  more.  Some 
writers  have  so  whittled  away  the  significance  of  the  term 
as  to  make  it  mean  little,  if  anything,  more  than  spirituaHty, 
of  mind.  But  while  every  mystic  is,  at  any  rate  potentially 
a  spiritually  minded  person,  every  spiritually  minded 
person  is  not  by  any  means  a  mystic.  WTiat  the  some- 
thing more,  or  the  something  different  may  be,  we  must 
now  try  to  discover. 

I.  The  first  important  step  we  take  by  means  of  the  word 
itself.  For  Mysticism  has  a  close  etymological  connexion 
with  the  term  "  the  Mysteries  "  apphed  to  certain  pagan 
initiations  of  the  world  of  St.  Paul's  day.  A  mystic  (/iuo-r?;?) 
was  one  initiated  into  Divine  things  :  he  must  keep  his 
mouth  shut  {^lveLv)  about  them,  because  the  initiation  was 
secret.  Later,  the  idea  came  to  be  that  his  eyes  were  shut ; 
either,  as  the  adjective  fiv(7TiKo<:  imphed,  because  the  secret 
knowledge  was  discerned  "  as  through  a  glass  darkly  ", 
and  through  sjnnbols,  or,  in  the  Neo-Platonists'  use  of  the 


MYSTICISM  AN  EXPERIENCE  9 

expression,  because,  when  rapt  in  contemplation,  the  eyes 
were  closed  to  external  things.  The  idea,  as  will  be  seen, 
passed  over  (bearing  some  false  impressions  in  its  transit) 
into  the  Christian  Church  ;  indeed,  our  instinctive  habit  of 
closing  the  eyes  in  prayer  quite  definitely  derives  from  it. 
A  little  mystical  treatise  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
Theologia  Germanica,  has  a  suggestive  thought  with  regard 
to  the  two  eyes  with  which  nature  has  provided  us.  We  are 
taught  thereby,  it  tells  us,  that  there  are  two  sorts  of 
vision,  the  outward  and  the  spiritual.  We,  says  the  Theolo- 
gia, have,  as  it  were,  to  close  one  eye  in  order  to  focus  clearly 
with  the  other,  whichever  kind  of  vision  we  choose  ;  only 
Christ  could  see  all  life,  material  and  spiritual,  whole  and 
undistorted,  with  both  eyes  at  once.  To  return  to  the 
Mysteries,  which,  through  the  Neo-Platonists  and  pseudo- 
Dionysius,  exercised  so  marked  an  effect  on  the  theology  of 
the  Medieval  Church.  There  was  one  note  common  to  all  of 
them — Eleusinian,  Ba-^chic,  or  Mithraic.  They  professed 
always  to  give  an  Experience,  actual  knowledge,  actual 
power,  actual  life.  Hence  mystical  doctrines,  in  their  turn, 
are  never  merely  speculative,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word,  even  if  they  lead  on  to  speculation.^  In  its  essence 
Mysticism  is  experimental.  It  is,  says  Professor  Rufus 
Jones,  "  rehgion  in  its  most  acute,  intense,  and  living  stage  "} 
"  The  mystic  is  a  thorough-going  empiricist  ".'  Every 
true  mystic  would  say,  "  We  speak  that  we  do  know  : 
we  testify  to  that  we  have  seen  ".  It  is  an  Experience  all 
through,  varying  with  the  individual  mystic,  but  having 
certain  broad  notes  of  teaching  and  of  consent. 

^  "  '  Speculative  '  or  Dogmatic  Theology  is  like  the  theory  of 
optics  .  .  .  mystical  theology  is  the  sight  itself,  with  all  that  it 
involves  of  exercise  and  training.  Speculative  theology  is  a  science  ; 
mystical  theology  is  an  art."  A,  B.  Sharpe  :  Mysticism  :  Its  True 
Nature  and  Value,  p.  7. 

*  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  15. 

*  Josiah  Royce  :    The  World  and  the  Individual,  vol.  i.  p.  81. 


10  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

An  Experience  of  what  ? 

n.  The  mystic  is  athirst  for  God  :  is  it  too  bold  in  this 
connexion  to  use  tri'  late  Dr.  Mobeiiy 's  expression,  in  his 
"  Atonement  and  Personahty  "  and  to  say  that  he  is  "  in  love 
with  God  "  ?  It  is  God  who  "  ceases  to  be  an  object  and 
becomes  an  experience".  "Awareness  of  relation  with  God" 
is  that  to  which  he  awakes  ;  "  direct  and  intimate  con- 
sciousness of  the  Divine  Presence  "  that  in  which  he  dwells. 
But  then  he  believes  that  this  keen  attraction,  this  God- 
fascination  could  never  be  his  except  by  God's  own  enabling 
him  to  feel  it.^  "  We  love  Him",  as  St.  John  says,  "  be- 
cause He  first  loved  us  ".  It  is,  from  one  point  of  view, 
on  which  all  mystics  from  St.  Bernard  to  Coventry  Patmore 
have  insisted,  a  love-mystery, — God's  love  to  the  soul,  the 
soul's  to  God.  It  is  "  in  His  light  that  we  see  light ",  or, 
as  Eckhart  phrases  it  in  a  wonderful  sentence,  "  The  eye 
with  which  I  see  God  is  the  same  as  that  with  which  God  sees 
me  ".  Our  love  to  God  is  part  and  proof  of  God's  love  to 
us.  "  Theologia  mystica  ",  as  both  Gerson  and  Bonaven- 
tura  agree,  "  est  animi  extensio  in  Deum  per  amoris 
desiderium  ".^ 

III.  Therefore,  because  he  is  in  love  with  the  Divine, 
Immediacy  of  Communion  is  the  mystic's  longing.  "  Mys- 
tical theology  craves  to  be  united  again  with  God  ",  "to 
know  God  without  intermediary  and,  as  it  were,  face  to 
face  ".  That  is  natural ;  the  lover  cannot  bear  anything 
to  come  betwixt  himself  and  the  beloved.  Like  Browning's 
Johannes  Agricola,  "  For  I  intend  to  get  to  God;  For  'tis 
to  God  I  speed  so  fast.  For  in  God's  breast,  my  own  abode,  I 


^  Cf.  Ottley's  Rule  oj  Faith  and  Hope  (Library  of  Historic  Theology), 
p.  214.  "  Mysticism  is  optimistic  because  it  implies  confidence 
in  the  infinite  willingness  of  God  to  bestow  what  man  is  essentially 
capable  of  receiving  ". 

2  "  Mystical  theology  is  the  mental  approach  to  God  through 
the  desire  of  love  ". 


MYSTICISM  AND  COMMUNION   WITH   GOD     ii 

lay  my  spirit  down  at  last  ".  It  is  only  right  to  say  that  this 
longing  for  immediate  contact  with  the  Divine  had  and 
has  its  dangers.  It  closely  resembles  at  times  the  Asiatic 
passion  f-;  abs^ipii  n,  c-.nd  faintly  suggests  not  seldom  the 
image  of  the  moth  and  the  candle-flame.  Some  of  the 
Christian  mystics,  again,  are  found  confessing  to  the  tempta- 
tion to  "  get  past  "  the  Cross,  and,  leaving  Christ  on  one  side, 
to  reach  the  Father.  Julian  of  Norwich  is  amongst  these  ; 
the  c;jin.;.iac:iLg  ia-i.  is  that  there  would  have  been  no 
Christian  Mysticism — and  the  Christian  Faith  is  the  surest 
and  most  natural  home  of  Mysticism — had  this  temptation 
not  been  always  and  strenuously  resisted,  and  the  Mystical 
Way  of  discipline,  purgative  and  practical,  evolved  and 
tested  as  the  true  and  only  safe  approach  to  the  communion 
so  ardently  desired.  "  Without  holiness  no  man  shall  see  the 
Lord". 

IV.  But  this  longing  for  contact  with  the  Absolute 
led  directly  to  a  repeated  emphasis  of  belief  in  the  One-ness 
of  God,  as  the  "supreme,  all-pervading,  u^rl  indwelling 
power,"  of  "  enthusiastic  love  of  the  Good,  the  True,  the 
One  ".  This,  of  course,  was  no  more  than  an  affirmation 
of  the  central  doctrine  of  the  Christian  Faith,  but  neverthe- 
less it  was  an  assertion  of  inestimable  value  for  the  untutored 
Europe  of  the  Middle  and  early-Middle  Ages.  It  was  there, 
precisely,  that  this  particular  emphasis  was  needed.  The  West 
never  had  the  instinct  for  the  One — the  Absolute — which, 
with  all  its  exaggerations,  has  been  the  vital  witness  of  the 
East,  and  its  gift  to  the  world,  and  which  made  Mohammedan- 
ism, in  one  aspect  of  its  origin,  a  Christian  sect  in  revolt 
against  degradations  of  Christian  behef. 

V.  To  this  root-conviction,  its  legacy  from,  and  link  with 
the  East,  the  mj^stics  added  the  corollary  of  behef  in  the 
unity  of  all  existence  in  God ,  the  behef  that  behind  all  appar- 
ent divergence,  contradiction,  or  duality,  lies  a  synthesis,  a 
resolution  at  last.    This  made  them  glorious  optimists ;  God 


12  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

is  in  all,  and  all  is  in  God.  As  St.  Bonaventura  says, 
"  His  centre  is  everywhere,  His  circumference  nowhere  ". 
This  certainly  led  towards  such  a  "  higher  Pantheism " 
as  that  of  Tennyson's,  "  The  seas,  the  hills,  and  the  plains, 
Are  not  these,  O  soul,  the  vision  of  Him  Who  reigns  ?  "  And 
the  mystics  would  have  said  "  Yes/'.  But  when  it  came  to 
the  further  question,  "  Is  not  the  vision  He  ?  "  they  would 
have  stopped  short,  and  answered  "  No  ".  For  Nature,  or 
the  Universe,  is  not  the  circumference  of  God.  Yet  Nature 
is  full  of  God,  and  points  to  God.  With  Kingsley,  as  we  saw, 
it  is  "  the  next  greatest  fact  to  that  of  God's  existence  ".  With 
other,  and  older  mystics,  it  was  even  more  :  Erigena  spoke 
of  "  the  Word  of  God,  Who  is  the  Nature  of  all  things  ". 
In  such  minds  there  could  rest  no  doubt  as  to  the  importance 
of  symbols  in  the  gradual  manifestation  of  truth.  WhoUy 
congenial  to  the  methods  of  the  East  in  imparting  know- 
ledge,— and  Mysticism,  it  may  be  again  recalled,  took  its 
rise  in  the  East — where  the  secrets  of  wisdom  are  not  scat- 
tered carelessly  broad-cast  for  every  profane  eye  to  rest 
upon,  and  every  heedless  foot  to  spurn,  S3nTibohsm  had 
passed  over  to  the  West.  It  had  all  the  authority  of  the 
Great  Teacher  Himself,  and  of  the  Fourth  Evangehst ;  but 
it  was  also  nourished  and  stereotyped  by  the  means  of  its 
transit.  The  writings  of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  from  which 
Western  Mysticism  received  its  first  inspiration,  regarded 
Christianity  somewhat  in  the  hght  of  "  a  Platonic  mysteri- 
osophy ".  They  were  indeed,  for  the  most  part,  Neo- 
Platonist  reasonings,  "  shghtly  sprinkled  with  water  from  a 
Christian  font  ".^  All  the  same,  they,  and  the  phase  of 
thought  which  they  inculcated,  helped  indirectly  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  great  school  of  Nature-Mysticism,  which, 
after  the  shock  of  the  Reformation  had  displaced  the  con- 

1  Prof.  Rufus  Jones  :  Mystical  Religion,  p.  no ;  cf.  H.  Workman  : 
Christian  Thought  to  the  Reformation,  p.  153. 


MYSTICISM  AND  HUMAN   PERSONALITY      13 

ventional  religious  landmarks  of  centuries,  obtained,  and  in 
modern  poetry  still  retains,  so  large  a  sway. 

VI.  But  in  the  systematized  mystical  theology  of  the 
later  Medieval  Church  the  world  in  which  God  is  primarily 
reflected  was  the  world  of  the  human  soul.  Henry  More, 
the  Cambridge  Platonist,  summing  up  both  sides  of  the 
problem,  said,  "  Nullus  in  microcosmo  spiritus,  nullus  in 
macrocosmo  Deus  ".  Human  personality  is,  or  is  meant  to 
be,  the  clearest  mirror  of  God.  To  use  St.  James'  words,  it 
is  that  in  which  a  man  looking  can  see  to  irpoatoTrov  t^? 
yeveaeco^;  avrov,  "  the  face  of  his  genesis,  his  true  birth  ". 
For  "  grace ",  says  Ruysbroek,  "  works  from  within  out- 
wards"; until  even  "landscape  is  a  state  of  the  soul". 
"  Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and 
feet  ",  or,  a  sa  Provencal  mystic  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
Antoine  Yvan,  daringly  put  it,  "  Aux  amoureux  de  Dieu 
avec  Dieu,  puisque  Dieu  est  en  nous,  comme  le  blanc  au 
linge  et  k  la  neige,  et  comme  la  douceur  au  sucre  et  au  miel,  et 
comme  le  chaleur  au  feu,  et  plus  proche  de  nous  que  nous, 
et  plus  nous  que  nous  ".^ 

To  many — to  Tauler,  for  example,  and  the  Cambridge 
Platonists  of  the  seventeenth  century — the  soul  was  a 
universe  in  miniature  (a  microcosmus)  in  which  the  spiritual 
Christ  is  born  and  suffers,  is  crucified,  and  rises  again,  the 
experience  of  which  Longfellow  in  his  "  Golden  Legend  " 
makes  Luther  the  mouthpiece  : — 

..."  The  spiritual  agonies. 
The  inward  deaths,  the  inward  hell, 
And  the  divine  new  births  as  well, 
That  surely  follow  after  these. 
As  after  Winter  follows  Spring  ". 

We  have  then  before  us  the  facts  of  the  mystical  love-search 
*  Henri  Bremond  ;  La  Provence  Mystique  a«  XVIP  SiMe,  p.  10. 


14  WHAT  IS   MYSTICISM? 

after  God,  and  of  the  twin  methods  of  finding  the  object  of 
that  search,  symbolically  through  the  world  of  outward 
Nature,  and  experimentally  in  the  world  of  human  nature. 
The  search  itself  is  the  evocation  of  the  higher,  inward  self, 
the  subsiicutkin  of  that  higher  self  for  the  lower,  and  the 
merging  or  losing — which,  in  mystical  paradox,  would  be 
the  true  reaUzation — of  the  individuality  in  God.  Perhaps 
this  is  the  not  unfitting  place  to  indicate  two,  and  very 
opposite,  dangers  which  have  always  beset  the  path  of 
mystical  progress.  Are  upward  steps  ever  without  danger 
of  some  corresponding  fall  ? 

The  first  of  these  perilous  tendencies  of  Mysticism  was, 
as  has  been  already  hinted,  to\vards  Pantheism.  The  sense, 
strong  in  so  many  mystics,  oi  the  Eterjial,  ghmmering  or 
shining  everywhere  through  the  veil  of  the  finite,  led  on  to  the 
temptation  to  identify  Nature  with  God.  This  identifica- 
tion, when  it  becomes  absolute,  is  what  is  known  as.  Panthe- 
ism, and,  of  course,  provides  a  short  cut  to  the  realization  of 
the  Divine  Oneness.  Like  all  short  cuts,  it  has  its  fascina- 
tions, but,  not  unlike  many  short  cuts,  it  soon  lands 
its  travellers  in  difficulties.  It  leads  them,  indeed,  into  a 
bog,  and  this  bog  is  the  necessar}/  confusion  or  blurring  of 
the  distinction  between  vOood  and  Evil.  How  explain  the 
indubitable  evil  or  imperfection  or  flawiness  in  Nature  with- 
out either  saying  that  it  is  not  evil,  whereby  the  moral  intui- 
tions are  outraged,  or  else  lowering  the  whole  conception 
of  the  Divine  Purity  ?  There  is  no  escape  for  the  logical 
Pantheist  from  this  dilemma,  for  the  apparent  deliverance 
from  it,  the  assertion,  with  Browning,  that  evil  "  is  naught, 
is  null,  is  silence  implyir.g  ,,ound  ",  is  the  surrender  of  the 
Pantheistic  for  the  Panentheistic  position,  a  recognition, 
so  far  as  the  verdicts  on  Nature  of  human  consciousness  or 
knowledge  are  concerned,  of  the  inevitability  of  God's 
transcendence,  that  is  to  say,  if  the  r:oral  standard  is  to  be 
preserved.     By  Pantheism  pure  and  simple  the  standard  of 


PANTHEISM  AND   NEGATIVISM  15 

Good  for  the  individual  must  be  compromised  in  the  long 
run. 

In  turning  to  the  other  danger  that  haunted  Mysticism, 
one,  too,  that  affected  it  far  more  nearly,  we  come  upon  a 
curious  instance  of  the  motion  of  the  intellectual  see-saw. 
What  saved  Mysticism  from  Pantheism  was  the  strong  sense, 
shared  by  all  the  mystics,  of  God's  transcendence  of  any  and 
every  symbol,  however  eloquent.  Many  of  them  loved  and 
valued  the  symbohc,  but  always  either  as  a  means  of  expres- 
sion, or  as  a  schoohng  for  beginners.  They  could  not  think 
that  the  symbol  in  itself  was  the  goal  of  conception  and  ideal. 
They  were  sure  that  the  ReaUty  infinitely  outmeasured  and 
overpassed  its  richest  symbols  ;  for,  by  the  very  virtue  of 
the  origin  and  derivation  of  the  mystical  cultus,  they  were 
"  after  the  Absolute  ",  and  it  was  Immediacy  of  Communion 
with  the  Divine,  and  not  a  mediated  contact,  that  they 
yearned  for.  The  service  of  mystical  theology  in  this  respect 
to  the  Western  Church,  ever  prone  to  matter-of-fact  defini- 
tion and  a  rather  self-satisfied  logic,  can  scarcely  be  over- 
rated. But  to  many  of  the  mystics  it  had  its  own  peculiar 
perils,  even  while  the  service  rendered  was  of  permanent 
value,  and  gained  its  strength  from  an  undoubted  truth. 
From  the  so-called  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  down  to  the 
end  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  find  in  full  vogue  amongst  mystical 
thinkers  what  is  known  as  the  Negative  method  of  approach 
to  God — the  Via  Negativa.  It  is  the  opposite  pole  of  thought 
to  Pantheism.  Instead  of  piling  up  all  the  symbols  within 
reach,  it  was  felt  so  strongly  that  nothing  could  really 
express,  or  be  worthy  to  express,  God,  that,  with  the  object 
of  reaching  Him,  the  mind  was  dehberately  stripped  of 
every  earthly  hkeness,  or  analogy,  or  symbol,  of  His  Being. 
So  St.  Augustine  taught.  "  We  must  not  even  caU  God 
ineffable  ",^  he  says,  or  rather  quotes,  "  since  this  is  to  make  an 

^  De  Trin.  vii.  4,  7. 


i6  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

assertion  about  Him.  He  is  above  every  name  that  can 
be  named".  "He  is  best  adored  in  silence;  best  known 
by  nescience  ;  best  described  by  negatives  ".^  Our  own 
Hooker  echoes  this.  "  Our  safest  eloquence  concerning  Him 
is  our  silence,  when  we  confess  without  confession  that  His 
glory  is  inexpHcable,  His  greatness  above  our  capacity  and 
reach  ".  So  by  abstraction, — by  saying  that  God  is  not 
this  or  that,  or  the  other  quahty  because  so  infinitely 
beyond  them — there  was  reached  as  the  term  of  the  soul's 
adventure  what  amongst  the  mystics  was  known  as  "the 
Divine  darkness ",  "  the  vacant  ground ",  "  the  waste 
place  "  of  the  Godhead.  Exaggeration  was  easy  in  this 
direction,  and  many  such  mystical  phrases  sound  repel- 
lent to  Western  ears,  or  merely  indicative  of  the  exhaustion 
of  the  intellect  or  the  emotions.  But  again  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  East  was  the  source  of  the  mystical 
experience,  and  that  the  vehicle  whereby  the  transit  of 
mystical  philosophy  was  made  from  East  to  West  was  the 
Greek  language,  with  its  almost  endless  possibiUties  of  re- 
finement on  refinement  of  abstraction  ;  and,  lastly,  that 
both  the  Greek  proto-mystics  and  their  nearest  imitators,  the 
German  school  of  the  thirteenth  century,  were  trying  to 
express  in  terms  what,  as  we  saw  in  Professor  James'  "  four 
marks/',  is  really  an  ineffable  experience.  But  it  is  of 
practical  interest  to  note  that  from  this  school  of  thought 
arose  its  corollary  in  action,  Asceticism  ;  and  very  naturally. 
If,  to  get  to  God,  the  mind  must  be  stripped  of  every  con- 
cept and  every  imagination,  it  was  right,  surely,  also  to 
strip  the  body  of  all  that  could  satisfy,  enrich,  ease,  and 
perhaps  thereby  delude.  All  the  comforts  and  the  intel- 
lectual joys  of  hfe  were  capable  of  being  viewed,  siib  specie 
aeternitatis,  as  veils  that  hid  or  distorted  the  vision  of  God. 
But  Mysticism,  touching  at  times  the  two  extremes  of 

1  See  Rufus  Jones  :    Mystical  Religion,  p.  95  note. 


GOD-LIKENESS  IN  THE  SOUL  17 

Pantheism  and  Negativism,  never  abode  long  by  either  o'' 
them.  Its  early  insistence  on  Experience  and  its  early 
alliance  with  the  Platonic  school  of  Philosophy  came  to  the 
rescue.  Its  experience  must  be  spiritual ;  its  philosophy — 
and  Mysticism  cannot  help  being  a  philosophy — involved 
the  use  and  indeed  the  exaltation  of  Reason,  and  the  admis- 
sion of  the  Emotions  as  its  bondservants,  in  the  apprehen- 
sion of  God.  Then  the  curious  fact  of  world-history,  the 
fact  that  the  Church  has  travelled  always  Westwards,  with 
a  result  of  constant  reinforcement  to  the  Faith  from  the 
practical  Western  genius  to  be  up  and  doing,  to  define  and 
to  act,  helped  Western  Mysticism  to  live  a  hfe,  intellectual 
and  practical,  whose  high  and  gracious  sanity  is  of  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  Holy  Gospels  themselves.  To  name  most  of 
the  European  medieval  mystics  is  to  name  men  and  women 
of  fruitful  and  self-sacrificing  Christian  life  and  activity. 

If  we  now  return  to  the  mystical  thought  of  man  in  his 
relationship  with  God,  we  shall  be  able  to  summarize  it 
briefly  as  follows,  and  then  turn  to  what  became  a  component 
and  distinctive  part  of  strictly  Christian  Mysticism — the 
systematization  of  the  mystical  life.  The  soul,  in  mystical 
thought,  has  the  power  of  sight  in  spiritual  things,  as  the 
body's  eyes  have  in  things  natural.  But  to  be  able  to  see 
God,  man  must  partake  himself  of  something  God-Hke.  It 
is  in  His  light  that  we  see  Hght.  This  is  as  we  should  ex- 
pect. Human  vision  has  to  be  trained  to  its  work.  It  is  the 
person  who  knows  something  of  Art,  has  taken  pains  to 
study  Art,  has  in  fact  something  of  the  artist  in  him,  who 
can  truly  see  a  picture  in  a  way  that  the  ignoramus 
or  the  casual  sight-seer  cannot.  It  is  the  musician  who  can 
best  hear  music.  Even  so,  "  blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for 
they  shall  see  God  ".  "  We  shall  be  hke  Him,  for  we  shall 
see  Him  as  He  is  " — and  that  sight  is  impossible  without 
likeness.  Selfishness,  anger,  sensuality,  are  disquaHfications 
for  the  heavenly  vision.  "  Man  must  clean  his  mirror  if 
M.c.  c 


i8  ^VHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

God  is  to  be  reflected  in  it ".  Now  there  is,  the  mystics 
taught,  a  ground  of  potential  likeness  to  God  in  everyone. 
Some  likened  it  to  a  seed  that  could  be  tended,  some  to  a 
s^rk  that  could  be  fanned  to  a  flame.  The  Germans  of  the 
fourteenth  century  talked  much  of  this  "  Fiinkelein ",  or 
Httle  spark  at  the  apex,  as  they  pictured  it,  of  the  soul. 
The  question  was,  how  to  tend  the  seed  to  its  growth,  how 
to  fan  the  spark  to  a  flame.  So  we  come  to  the  Mystic's 
scheme  of  the  inner  hfe. 

VII.  Mystics  in  general  taught  the  scala  perfectionis, 
the  ladder  of  perfection.     This  has   three  rungs  or  grades. 

{a)  Purgative :  which  includes  contrition,  confession, 
heart}^  amendment,  and  also,  which  is  interesting,  the  social 
and  civic  virtues.  The  great  non-Christian  mystic,  Plotinus, 
insisted  on  these,  as  representing,  he  said,  the  Divine  quali- 
ties of  order  and  limitation.  "  The  true  mystic  ",  says 
Ewald,  "  never  withdraws  himself  from  the  business  of 
hfe,  no,  not  even  from  the  smallest  business  ".  We  may  say 
that  this  "  grade  "  is  the  Christian  hfe  as  commonly  lived 
out  by  good  practical  people.  This  part  of  the  "  scala  " 
also  includes  "  ascesis,"  which,  looked  on  simply  and  sensibly 
as  "  training "  in  the  Pauline  sense,  has  always  held  a 
place  in  the  Christian  scheme,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  in 
the  lives  of  all  who  are  in  earnest  over  their  profession  or 
business. 

{h)  The  second  stage  is  the  Illuminative.  The  outward  duties 
have  now  become  natural  and  habitual,  and  the  struggle  is 
transferred  to  the  inner  life.  The  "  warfare  and  pilgrimage  " 
stage  of  experience  is  sensibly  entered  upon ;  the  soul  often 
experiences  a  marked  diminution  of  spiritual  comforts, 
"  accidie  "  has  to  be  met  and  conquered,  dryness,  coldness, 
/and  what  St.  John  of  the  Cross  termed  the  "  Dark  Night  of 
the  Soul  "  encountered  and  won  through.  God,  in  fact, 
has  now  to  be  chosen  and  loved  for  Himself,  not  for  blessings, 
helps,  or  visions  that  proceed  from  Him,     Sometimes  that 


THE   "SCALA   PERFECTIONIS  "  19 

strange,  penetrating  aphorism  of  Spinoza  seems  to  come  true, 
"  Whoso  loves  God  must  not  expect  to  be  loved  by  Him  in 
return  ".  Yet  through  this  hard  school  the  soul  is  learning 
to  choose  the  highest  good  for  its  own  sake.  It  learns  that 
"  we  do  not  enter  the  Path  because  it  is  pleasant,  but  because 
it  is  the  only  Path  ". 

(c)  The  third  and  highest  rung  of  the  "  scala  "  is  the 
Unitive  stage.  The  soul  is  joined  to  God,  and  like  the  loved 
disciple  hes  in  His  breast.  Irenaeus,  Athanasius,  Clement, 
Origen,  Augustine  all  quite  commonly  use  and  press  the  idea 
of  identification  with  God  as  the  goal  of  the  spiritual  hfe, 
nay,  they  use  the,  to  our  modern  ears,  startling  phrase  deifi- 
cari,  deoTToieaOai,  without  hesitation.  Indeed,  Harnack 
says,  "  After  Theophilus,  Irenaeus,  Hippolytus,  and  Origen, 
the  idea  of  deification  is  found  in  all  the  Fathers  of  the  ancient 
Church,  and  that  in  a  primary  position  ...  as  also  in 
Cyril,  Sophronius,  and  late  Greek  and  Russian  theologians."  ^ 
It  is  impossible  to  enter  here  upon  this  branch  of  the  subject 
at  length ;  it  must  suffice  to  point  out  that  the  modern 
conception  of  "  personality  "  has  altered  materially  from 
the  limited  interpretation  put  on  the  word  in  ancient  times  ; 
and  that  the  Greek  6e6<i  was  a  far  lower  and  vaguer  term 
than  the  ^^'esLern  "  deus,"  so  that  deoiroLeaOat  is  misleading 
if  regarded  as  anything  but  an  approximate  equivalent  of 
"  deificari  ".  The  main  concept  of  ^eo<?  amongst  the  Greeks 
was  the  quality  of  freedom  from  the  doom  of  mortality.  A 
Divine  Being  is  one  "  who  only  hath  immortality  ".  This 
sort  of  deification — the  imparting  of  immortality — was, 
says  Harnack,/'  the  idea  of  salvation  taught  in  the  Mysteries  ", 
(that  is,  in  the  Pagan  Mysteries)  and  the  thought  was  caught 
up  and  carried  into  Christianity.  Christ  "  brought  Hfe  and 
immortahty  to  light  through  the  Gospel ".  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  not  an  exact  thinker,  but  one  whose  mind  re- 

*  Quoted  by  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  Appendix  C.  p.  358. 


20  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

sponded  with  vivid  reactions  to  ideas  "  in  the  air  "  of  his  day, 
connects  the  two  notions.  to  /mt}  (^deipeaOai — to  be  im- 
perishable— is  to  share  in  Divinity,^  The  later  mystics 
of  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  century  Germany  appropriated 
the  idea,  only  with  a  difference.  In  earlier  days,  this  share 
in  the  Divine  Nature  was  a  gift  acquired  as  the  higher  ethical 
stage,  or  imparted  from  without ;  in  later  days,  it  was  a 
development  of  that  which  was  uncreated  and  godhke  in  the 
original  constitution  of  man's  nature.* 

But  in  any  case,  as  the  Divine  Being  is  infinite,  so  the 
Unitive  stage  is  an  infinite  process,  though  begun  in  time,  and 
occasionally  realized  by  temporal  foretastes  or  gUmpses. 

VIII.  The  last  sentence  brings  us  in  conclusion  to  the 
consideration  of  perhaps  the  most  vexed  question — certainly 
a  subject  more  pregnant  of  misunderstanding  than  any 
other — in  connexion  with  the  mystical  hfe  and  tempera- 
ment, the  experience  of  the  Ecstasy.  Yet  it  is  a  subject 
that  cannot  be  passed  over,  a  question  that  must  be  dis- 
cussed, inasmuch  as  the  experience  itself,  or  at  any  rate  the 
capacity  for  the  experience,  constitutes  the  very  differentia 
of  Mysticism.  What,  then,  was  the  Ecstasy  ?  It  was  a  state 
of  inward  sensation  or  knowledge,  for  both  descriptions  are 
true,  that  supervened  at  times  during  the  third  stage  of  the 
Scala,  if  one  may  separate  the  stages  in  this  rather  mechani- 
cal way ;  of  course  they  often  had  interaction.  It  was  a 
foretaste  here  of  the  perfect  Union  only  fully  to  be  entered 
upon  hereafter — a  touch  of  eternity  manifesting  itself  in 
time.  Even  in  the  lives  of  the  greatest  mystics  it  was  a 
rare  experience  ;  Plotinus  is  described  as  having  had  it 
thrice  ;    St.   Paul,  as  far  as  we  can  judge  from  his  own 

*  Strom.  V.  lo.  63. 

'  It  is  important  to  remember  that,  in  both  East  and  West,  the 
apparent  dangers  of  this  doctrine  were  safeguarded  against  by 
belief  in  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  "  the  only  (uniquely)  begotten  son 
of  God". 


THE  ECSTASY  21 

account  in  2  Corinthians,  once.  But,  unhappily,  the  word 
"  ecstasy  " — literally,  a  standing  outside  of  oneself — has  been 
so  diverted  from  its  original  use  that  many  people  have 
little  or  no  idea  as  to  what  the  actual "  ecstasy  ",  or  "  rapture  " 
was,  or  is.  It  has  been  confused  with  the  seeing  of  visions,  or 
the  hearing  of  "  locutions  ",  and  it  has  been  ascribed  to  all 
sorts  of  abnormal  pathological  conditions,  involuntary  or 
self-induced.  First,  let  us  note  that  there  is  nothing  "  ecs- 
tatic "  (in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  adjective)  about  the 
experience.  It  is  neither  vision-seeing,  nor  clairaudience. 
Indeed  it  possesses  in  the  highest  degree  the  "  four  marks  " 
whereby  Professor  James  distinguished  Mysticism  itself ; 
it  cannot  be  described  afterwards  (like  a  vision  or  dream);  it 
conveys  to  the  subject  the  sense  of  an  absolute  certitude  of 
knowledge ;  it  is  transient ;  and  it  is  not  self-induced,  but 
involuntary — a  "  rapture  "  in  fact.  The  subject  has  the 
sense  of  being  seized  upon,  as  St.  Teresa  described  the  ex- 
perience, or  filled  or  possessed  by  a  Power  other  than  the 
self,  although  intimately  at  one  with  the  self.  Fr.  Sharpe, 
in  his  admirable  treatise,  "  Mysticism  ;  Its  True  Nature  and 
Value,"  1  likens  the  ecstasy,  in  the  subject's  passivity  ("  we 
can  do  nothing  on  our  part  ",  says  St.  Teresa),  in  its  essential 
indescribabiUty,  and  in  its  legacy  of  certitude,  to  ordinary 
sensation.  "  Sensation  is  incapable  of  being  defined  or 
proved ;  the  one  thing  that  we  know  about  it  is  that  it 
occurs.  Whatever  the  conditions  may  be  and  whether  there 
is  an  adequate  cause  present  or  not,  the  one  indubitable  fact 
in  sensation  is  the  certainty  of  the  experience.  .  .  .  This  is 
precisely  the  case  of  the  mystic  ".  What  may  be  added  is 
that  the  sensation,  whenever  or  however  produced,  is  that  of 
contact  with  the  Absolute  ;  and  again,  that  the  true  access 
or  invitation  to  the  experience  is  the  love-fascination  of 
which  we  have  already  spoken.  Thought  has  its  place  and 
value,  but  love  is  the  primary  cause.  "  Plotinus  the 
*  Op,  cit,  ch.  iii. 


22  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

ecstatic  is  sure,  whatever  Plotinus  the  metaphysician  may 
think,  that  the  union  with  God  is  a  union  of  hearts  ;  that 
'  by  love  He  may  be  gotten  and  holden,  but  by  thought 
never.'  He,  no  less  than  the  medieval  contemplatives,  is 
convinced,  to  quote  his  own  words,  that  the  Vision  is  only 
for  the  desirous  ;  for  him  who  has  that  '  loving  passion  ' 
which  '  causes  the  lover  to  rest  in  the  object  of  his  love  '."  ^ 

It  has  been  urged  that  the  ecstasy  or  trance-experience, 
with  all  its  four  marks, — or  something  closely  analogous  to 
it— may  be  induced  by  artificial  means.  Professor  James, 
in  his  "  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience ",  gives  several 
examples  of  such.  Certain  former  of  narcotics,  mc'hods  of 
breathing,  or  ways  of  self-hypnotization,  are  productive  of 
effects  closely  resembling  the  mystical  experience. ^  As  in- 
stances of  the  latter  we  may  mention  Jacob  Behmen's  dis- 
covery that  the  trance  state  could  be  induced  by  steadfast 
gazing  at  a  bright  metal  disc,  or  the  beam  of  light  coming 
through  a  keyhole,  and  Tennyson's  curious  experience  ^  of 
what  followed  the  constant  repetition  of  his  own  name, 
with  its  accompaniment  of  an  accentuated  consciousness  of 
individual  personality.  The  latter  merits  further  con- 
sideration, but  in  any  case,  short  cuts  or  attempted  short 
cuts  to  the  goal  of  the  mystical  hfc  no  more  disprove  the 
reality  of  the  attainment  of  that  goal,  than  the  occasional 
achievements  of  "  Dutch  courage  "  disprove  the  reality  of 
genuine  fortitude,  the  fitful  brilliance  now  and  then  im- 
parted to  the  brain  by  semi-intoxication  refutes  the  existence 

^  E.  Underhill :  Mysticism,  p.  445.  cf.  Plotinus.  Enneads  vi. 
9.  "  The  soul,  therefore,  when  in  a  condition  conformable  to  Nature, 
loves  God,  wishing  to  be  united  to  Him  .  .  .  this,  therefore  is  the 
life  of  God  and  of  divine  and  happy  men  ...  a  flight  of  the  alone 
to  the  Alone  ". 

2  In  his  treatise  De  Canonisatione,  Pope  Benedict  XIV.  notes 
various  conditions,  natural  or  arising  from  disease,  which  may 
produce  seemingly  mystical  experiences. 

3  Cf.  The  Ancient  Sage.  And  see  Memoir,  by  his  Son,  vol.  i. 
p.  320. 


EXPERIENCES  OF  THE  ECSTASY  23 

of  what  we  call  "  genius,"  or  the  dubious  methods  and 
results  of  the  spirituahstic  seance  affect  one  way  or  the  other 
the  Christian's  faith  in  the  Resurrection,  and  his  hope  in  the 
life  of  the  world  to  come. 

To  return  :  the  Ecstasy  is  experience  on  the  spiritual  plane 
analogous  to  bodily  sensation,  and,  like  sensation,  essentially 
indescribable.       The  soul  feels  that  it  is  caught  up,  rapt, 
into  immediate  apprehension  or  touch  of  a  world  that  is  not 
ours,  or  of  which  ours  is  but  the  shadow,  a  world  in  which 
God  is  all,  and  all  is  in  God.     No  imagery,  no  form,  is  to  be 
recalled  afterwards.     In  this  sense  it  is  that  Noack  describes 
Mysticism  itself  as  "  formless  speculation  ".     To  quote  Dr. 
Inge's  definition  of  the  Ecstasy,  "  (It)  begins  when  thought 
ceases,  to  our  consciousness,  to  proceed  from  ourselves.     It 
differs  from  dreaming  because  the  subject  is  awake.     It 
differs  from  hallucination  because  there  is  no  organic  dis- 
turbance :    it  is,  or  claims  to  be,  a  temporary  enhancement, 
not  a  partial  disintegration,  of  the  mental  faculties.     Lastly, 
it  differs  from  poetical  inspiration,  because  the  imagination 
is   passive  ".^    We  are   not  without   modern   and   detailed 
instances  of  the  experience  thus  analyzed.     We  have  already 
glanced  at  Tennyson's  account  of  his  inducement  of  the 
trance  by  the  repetition  of  his  own  name,  but  a  better 
and   more   authentic    description   of  it,   apparently   unin- 
duced,  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  In  Memoriam",  canto  xcv,  when 
he 

— "  came  on  That  which  is,  and  caught 
The  deep  pulsations  of  the  world  " — 

more  authentic,  because,  apparently  unwittingly,  he  de- 
scribes as  precedent  conditions  of  the  state  the  very  condi- 
tions indicated  by  Plotinus  himself — the  feeling  of  stillness 
borne  in  upon  the  soul,  and  the  soul's  apartness  from  all 
human  distractions.^    He    teUs    of    the    "  calm    that    let 

^  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  p.  14. 
2  Infra,  pp.  257-8. 


24  WHAT  IS  MYSTICISM? 

the  tapers  burn,  unwavering  ",  and  how  "  in  the  house  Ught 
after  Hght  went  out,  and  I  was  aU  alone  ".  The  other  great 
instance  of  the  trance-state  is  Wordsworth's 

"  serene  and  blessed  mood 
In  which  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame, 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  Uving  soul 
And  see  into  the  hfe  of  things  ".^ 

And  there  are  ghmpses  of  the  same  experience  in  Browning, 
Coventry  Patmore,  and  in  the  ahnost  Nature-worship  of 
T.  E.  Brown,  especially  in  the  last-named's  "  Epistola  ad 
Dakyns".  But  they  can  all  be  brought  under  the  great 
twin  characteristics  of  the  experiences  if  \Y.  idsworth  and  of 
Tennyson — which  are  indeed  the  two  main  modes  of  mystical 
approach  to  God — namely,  the  conception  of  the  Divine  as 
immanent  in  the  world  of  Nature,  or  the  sense  of  individuality 
rendered  abnormally  acute  and  finding  itself  suddenly  dis- 
solved into  the  sense  of  an  infinitely  wider  and  all-embracing 
Personahty. 

We  may  say,  in  any  case,  that  the  mystical  temperament 
is  marked  out  either  by  the  capacity  for  +his  experience,  or 
at  any  rate,  by  the  capacity  to  understand  and  in  some  way 
respond  to  the  thought  of  it.  This  would  suggest  that  the 
true  mystic  is  compact  of  the  nature  of  the  seer  and  the 
nature  of  the  spiritual  man.  For  the  man  of  ordinary 
spiritual  goodness  is  by  no  means  necessarily  a  mystic,  nor 
is  the  visionary,  or  the  "  psychic  "  person,  by  virtue  of  that 
quality  alone,  a  mystic  ;  but  combine  the  two,  personal  hoU- 
ness  and,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  the  touch  on  the  unseen, 
and  there  are  the  makings  ®f  a  mystical  saint.  "  First ", 
as  Archbishop  Benson  was  wont  to  translate  the  PauHne 
phrase,  "  first  the  psychic,  then  the  spiritual ". 

It  is  in  consequence  of  its  intense  belief  in  and  desire  for 

1  Tintern  Abbey.     And  see  infra,  p.  255. 


MYSTICISM  A  LIVING  FORCE  25 

immediate  touch  and  communion  with  God,  that  Mysticism 
has  always  been  a  Hving  force.  The  mystics  would  not  take 
things  at  second-hand.  Life  is  Ufe,  and  must  be  known 
as  energizing  power ;  Love  must  be  actually  felt  as  love. 
Mysticism  is  not  indigenous  to  Christianity ;  indeed,  it  may 
be  said  that  to  its  presence,  its  yearning  for  the  truth,  its 
insistence  on  reality,  other  forms  of  faith  have  invariably 
owed  the  vitality  they  had  or  have  ;  nevertheless,  it  is  true, 
that  in  Christianity  Mysticism  found  its  fittest  home,  its 
best  discipUne,  and  its  freest  and  most  congenial  range  of 
vision  and  of  endeavour. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Mystical  Element  in  the  Gospels  and 

Epistles 

"  iy  yr  an  ",  said  Jacobi,  "  is  a  yonder-sided  animal ". 
J^VJ.  Whatever  brings  him  to  authentic  sight  or  touch, 
even  for  a  moment,  of  this  "  otherness  "  in  his  being  gives 
him  for  that  moment  the  mystic's  outlook  on  things.  Such 
partial  glimpses,  afforded  by  Nature,  or  Ai^,  or  Thought, 
are  common,  and  often  appear  to  have  little  to  do  with 
Religion  as  such.  The  momentary  clue  is,  in  fact,  mostly 
not  followed  up,  else  a  different  conclusion  might  be  ar- 
rived at.  But,  in  any  case,  the  mystical  instinct  or  tem- 
perament is  found  elsewhere  than  in  Christianity.  The 
sense  of  "  an  experience  deeper  than  science,  more  certain 
than  demonstration ",  "  when  we  possess  ourselves  as  one 
with  the  whole  "  ^  may  be  induced  by  the  study  of  meta- 
physics, or  by  such  thoughts  as  the  "  miUion-millionth  of 
a  grain,  which  cleft  and  cieft  again  for  evermore,  and  ever 
vanishing,  never  vanishes  ",  or  by  the  pursuit  of  beauty,  or 
by  some  shattering  cry  like  Mohammed's,  "  There  is  no 
God  but  God  ".  It  has  been  indeed  at  the  core  of  every 
religion  worthy  of  the  name,  for,  as  we  have  seen,  it  implied 
and  insisted  on  first-hand  experience.  But  we  can  expect, 
and  we  shall  not  be  disappointed,  to  find  the  mystical  element 
at  its  highest  and  best  within  its  natural  home,  Christianity, 

^  S.  T.  Coleridge  :  The  Friend,  Essay  xi. 


SOURCES  OF  CHRISTIAN  MYSTICISM         27 

and  that  from  the  very  outset.  True,  it  received  a  vast 
reinforcement,  later,  from  Greek  sources,  indeed.  Christian 
Mysticism,  viewed  as  a  system  of  Ufe  and  philosophy,  can 
but  trace  its  parentage  thence.  But,  interesting  as  this 
is  historicall}^  it  would  be  disconcerting  to  the  mystic  and 
dishonouring  to  the  Christian  Faith,  so  immense  and  far- 
reaching  was  that  imported  Greek  influence,  were  we 
obliged  to  stop  there.  It  would  mean  that  Christianity, 
in  part,  was  not  master  of  its  own  soul ;  that  what  persecu- 
tion had  failed  to  accomplish  by  force  had  been  accompHshed 
by  subtler  means,  and  that  the  purity  of  the  faith,  proof 
against  direct  attack,  had  been  moulded  and  leavened  at 
last  by  that  very  Pagan  mentahty  which  had  done,  almost 
ostentatiously,  without  the  Christ  offered  for  its  acceptance. 
Christian  Mysticism  looks  back  further  than  Dionysius  the 
Areopagite,  and  to  sources  higher  than  even  the  marvellous 
thought  of  Plotinus,  for  its  own  warrant  and  its  true  prin- 
ciples. It  looks  back  indeed  to  the  New  Testament ;  it 
claims  as  two  of  its  chief  prophets,  St.  Paul  and  St.  John, 
and  it  owns  as  its  Master  and  Inspirer,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
It  does  not  claim  that  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  and  the 
Johannine  writings  are  mystical  treatises  and  nothing 
else,  any  more  than  it  would  assert  that  Christ  was  a  Mystic 
merely  and  made  appeal  only  to  mystics.  ^  The  aim  of 
Christianity  is  catholic  ;  it  is  meant  to  embrace  numan 
nature  as  a  whole  and  not  a  specialized  function  of  it. 
There  are,  and  always  have  been,  many  devout  Christians 
who  would  not  own  to  the  mystical  temperament :  but 
there  are,  it  may  be  added,  many  more  to  whom  doctrines 

1  "  Christ", says  the  late  Canon  Moberly,  "  is  the  ti"ue  mystic. 
....  He  alone  has  reaUzed  all  that  mysticism  and  mystics  have 
aimed  at".  But  he  uses  the  term  mysticism  in  a  general  sense  as 
"  the  realization  of  human  personality  as  characterized  by  and 
consummated  in  the  indwelling  reaUty  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  which 
is  God".  Atonement  and  Personality,  p.  312. 


28    MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

strictly  mystical  in  their  nature  are  dear,  or  who  profess 
them  as  part  of  their  Christian  belief,  but  who  would  not 
recognize  such  a  name  for  them. 

Traces  of  such  doctrines,  traits  of  mystical  teaching 
and  experience,  are  not  wanting,  to  begin  with,  in  the 
Synoptic  accounts  of  our  Lord's  life,  themselves  by  no  means 
in  intention  mystical  documents.  The  temptations  in  the 
wilderness,  for  example,  whether  facts,  or  symbolic  sum- 
maries of  a  life-experience,  are  intensely  mystical  in  their 
range  of  meaning,  order,  and  suggestiveness.  The  account 
of  the  Transfiguration,  with  its  significant  and  glorified 
witnesses,  is  another  instance  in  point,  and  the  dyaWiaai'; 
of  Luke  X.  21,  with  its  mysterious  accompanying  utter- 
ances, resembles,  if  we  may  say  so  with  all  reverence,  the 
mystical  Rapture  or  Ecstasy.  It  is  remarkable  also  that 
Christ  should  have  chosen  as  His  nearest  companions  men  to 
whom  the  vision-state  was  familiar.  This  fact  has  been 
blurred  to  the  ordinary  Bible-student  by  the  habit  of  regard- 
ing the  Apostles  and  early  saints  as  men  in  some  ways 
wholly  differentiated  from  ourselves,  accepting  their  ex- 
periences as  true  but  refusing  to  allow  those  experiences  any 
relation  with  human  nature,  even  sanctified  human  nature 
as  we  know  it.  But  to  the  student  of  psychology  at  the 
present  day  these  experiences  are  of  the  highest  interest, 
and  the  events  narrated  in  the  Synoptic  gospels  and  the  Acts 
warrant  the  supposition  that  Christ  must  have  set  deliber- 
ate value  on  the  "  visionary  "  gift  in  those  who  companied 
with  Him  most  closely,  or  served  Him  best.  Peter,  James, 
John,  and  Paul  all  possessed  it  pre-eminently,  at  least  at 
the  outset  of  their  ministry,  if  we  judge  by  their  own  ac- 
counts, or  the  writings  of  their  companions.^    But  from 

^  St.  Peter  is  usually  regarded  as  a  non-mystic,  a  plain,  practical 
man  of  strong  human  predilections  and  sympathies.  It  is  sufficient 
to  remember  that  he  witnessed  the  Transfiguration,  that  the  begin- 
nings of  Gentile  conversion  owe  themselves  to  his  strange  trance 


MYSTICAL  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  29 

the  teaching  of  Christ  set  down  by  the  Synoptists  without 
preconceived  arrangement  or  "tendency"  it  is  also  possible 
to  deduce  the  mystical  warrant.  There  is  the  Experience 
that  runs  all  through  it — an  experience  unique  indeed  and 
beyond  definition,  but  still  an  experience  towards  which  the 
Christian  fellowship  is  beckoned — of  immediate  communion 
with  God.  There  is  the  intense  realization  of  a  hidden  but 
vital  union  between  the  Christ  and  His  society,  and  that  to 
all  time  :  "  where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  My 
Name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them  ' ' .  There  is  the  finding 
of  God  in  the  child-like  heart — the  kingdom  of  heaven  in 
their  innocent  faces  ;  there  is  the  great  maxim  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  as  to  the  Divine  vision,  "  blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God  ".  There  are  the  crucial 
laws  of  gain  through  loss  and  of  life  through  death  which  lie  at 
the  root  of  mystical  ethics.  And  there  is  the  mystical  say- 
ing, "  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you  ",  which  is  repeated 
with  a  remarkable  amplification  in  a  logion  of  the  Oxyrhyn- 
cus  Papyri,  "  and  whosoever  knoweth  himself  shall  find 
it  ".  A  logion  still  better  known  beautifies  and  hallows 
the  least  and  meanest  manual  labour ;  "  Raise  the  stone, 
and  thou  shalt  find  Me  ;  cleave  the  wood,  and  there  am 
I". 

We  pass  now  from  the  Lord  to  His  disciples,  and  although 
everywhere  in  the  New  Testament  writing  sayings  essentially 
mystical  confront  us  from  time  to  time — in  the  Epistles  of 
St.  James  and  St,  Peter,  for  example — two  names  will 
always  be  appealed  to  by  mystics  as  lending  warrant  and 
illustration  to  their  doctrines,  the  names  of  St.  Paul  and  of 
St.  John.  The  Pauline  Epistles  and  the  Johannine  writings, 
indeed,  contain  in  germ  and  suggestion  a  vast  portion  of 
that  body  of  mystical   theology  afterwards  to  be  system- 

on  the  housetop,  and  that  the  account  of  his  escape  from  prison 
mentions  his  familiarity  with  such  experiences.  "  He  wist  not 
that  it  was  true,  but  thought  he  saw  a  vision". 


30    MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

atized  by  the  exact  mind  of  the  Western  Church ;  and  then 
to  be  again  desystematized  by  the  thought  of  post- Reforma- 
tion EngHshmen,  never  so  wilHngly  unlogical  as  when  in 
touch  with  rehgion.  It  will  be  well  to  consider  St.  Paul 
first.  There  is  this  advantage  in  doing  so,  that  we  know  St. 
Paul  not  only  from  his  writings,  but  from  his  biography, 
and  chiefest  by  certain  autobiographical  reminiscences, 
which,  from  the  mystical  point  of  view,  are  of  the  highest 
importance. 

This  "  prince  of  all  true  Christian  mystics  "  ^  has  a  gospel, 
which  he  boldly  terms  "  my  gospel ",  and  asserts  to  have  come 
to  him  through  revelation,  and  not  by  means  of  men  ;  he 
has  been  brought  "  to  know  the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mys- 
tery ".  The  whole  tenour  of  his  life  has  been  changed  by  the 
vision  that  he  saw  on  the  road  to  Damascus.  This  vision 
some  have  identified  with  the  experience  of  the  "  man  in 
Christ  "  narrated  in  2  Cor.  xii.,  but  probably  erroneously. 
For  although  infinitely  more  momentous  than  other  visions 
which,  as  an  experience,  he  shared  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  his  "  life  in  Christ "  with  his  fellow  Apostle,  St.  Peter, 
the  narrations  of  Acts  ix.  and  2  Cor.  xii.  can  hardly  refer 
to  the  same  event,  if  but  for  the  reason  that  the  experience 
on  the  way  to  Damascus  was  capable  of  description,  botli 
as  regards  what  was  seen,  and  what  was  heard,  whereas  the 
experience  of  the  "  rapture  "  to  the  "  third  heaven  "  was 
not.  The  former  in  fact,  in  mystical  phraseology,  was 
vision,  the  latter  ecstasy. 

It  may  be  well  to  attempt  to  sum  up  the  special  points 
with  regard  to  which  Mysticism  gains  its  inspiration  and 
direction  from  St.  Paul,  "  who,  in  his  mystical  outbursts 
and  in  the  systematic  parts  of  his  doctrine  .  .  .  gives  us 
the  earliest,  one  of  the  deepest,  and  to  this  hour  by  far  the 
most   influential,   among   the   at   all   detailed   experiences 

*  W.  Major  Scott :    Aspects  oj  Christ ian  Mysticism,  p.   14. 


ST.   PAUL'S  VISIONS  31 

and  schemes  ...  as  to  the  relations  of  the  human  soul 
with  God  ".  ^ 

(i)  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  early  insistence,  as 
we  have  noted,  on  visions,  which,  although  not  possessing 
the  first  of  Professor  James'  four  marks  of  mystical  ex- 
perience, Ineffability,  have  all  the  other  three — Transiency, 
Noetic  Quality  (they  convey  new  knowledge)  with  Authori- 
tativeness  ("  I  was  not  disobedient  to  the  heavenly  Vision  '  ) 
and  Passivity.  There  are  several  instances  in  which 
important  activities  of  St.  Paul  are  stimulated  or  strength- 
ened by  visions,  that  is,  by  something  definitely  seen  and 
heard  in  the  trance  state.  His  first  visit  to  Europe  is 
inspired  by  such  a  vision  or  dream  ;  his  impulse  to  "  witness 
in  Rome  "  comes  from  a  vision  of  the  Lord  and  a  direct 
commission  from  Him  (Acts  xxiii.  11)  ;  he  is  bidden  to 
leave  Jerusalem  on  his  first  visit  to  the  temple  after  his 
conversion,  while  he  was  "  in  a  trance  "  (Acts  xxii.  17), 
he  is  consoled  against  danger  in  Corinth,  in  Jerusalem,  and 
on  board  ship  in  the  storm,  the  last  time  by  "an  angel  of 
God  "  (Acts  xxvii.  23).  In  fact,  it  is  scarcely  realized  how 
large  a  part  these  psychic  experiences  had  in  moulding  the 
life  and  labours  of  the  great  Apostle. 

(2)  By  the  first  and  most  startling  of  these  visions  Paul 
is  brought  to  Christ,  yet  not,  and  most  emphatically  not, 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  Christ  of  the  Gospel  liistory.  He 
did  not  at  first,  he  tells  the  Galatians,  deem  it  necessary 
to  gather  historical  evidence  with  regard  to  the  Lord's 
ministry,  death,  or  resurrection.  "  I  conferred  not  with 
flesh  and  blood  ",  he  says,  and  even  when  he  did  meet 
Christ's  life-companions,  Peter  and  John,  they  "  added 
nothing  "  to  him,  or  to  his  internal  conviction.  A  certain 
modification  of  this  attitude  of  bare  dependence  on  personal 
revelation  is  discernible  at  the  end  of  the  First  Epistle  to 

'  Fr.  von  Hugel :  The  Mystical  Element  oj  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  320. 


32    MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

the  Corinthians.  Here  he  does  cite  proofs  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion in  order  to  meet  the  objections  of  gainsayers.  But 
in  2  Corinthians,  he  is  back  again,  with  even  stronger  empha- 
sis, at  his  former  position,  "  Though  we  have  known  Christ 
after  the  flesh,  yet  henceforth  know  we  Him  no  longer  ". 
St.  Paul,  in  fact,  will  have  knowledge  of  Christ,  not  as  a 
man,  but  as  Man  ;  and  yet  even  that  scarcely  sums  up  his 
Christology.  It  is  a  cosmic  Christ  that  he  preaches,  a  Christ 
pre-existent  as  God,  or  as  "  in  the  form  of  God  ",^  a  Christ 
in  Whom,  through  Whom,  and  for  Whom  all  things  were 
created,  2  a  Christ  in  Whom  all  things  "  hold  together  ",  ' 
and  Who  is  therefore,  in  that  sense  and  not  merely  historic- 
ally, eyes  to  the  blind,  ears  to  the  deaf,  the  principle  of 
the  senses  themselves  ;  moreover,  a  Christ  Who  is  in  some 
way  coeval  with  the  time-series,  Who  is,  till  the  completion 
of  that,  "  all  and  in  all  ",*  and  Who  is  the  actual  nature  of 
man,  as  such.  For  "  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 
fullness  of  Christ  "  is  the  goal  of  completed  manhood.'  All 
this  He  is  for  man,  not  by  virtue  of  certain  historical  events 
enacted  by  a  historical  person  at  a  given  date,  though 
these  have  their  vast  significance  as  being  the  representation 
on  the  world  stage  of  an  eternal  Process,  but  by  virtue  of 
His  interaction  as  spirit,  in  and  through  ourselves.  "  Now 
the  Lord  is  that  Spirit ".  St.  Paul  discourages  for  all  time 
the  attempt  of  some  later  mystics  to  "  get  past  "  Christ 
to  the  "  vacant  ground  "  of  the  undifferentiated  Godhead. 
He  points  us  instead  to  the  "  fullness  of  Christ  "  as  the 
medium  by  and  through  which  the  Godhead  makes  possible 
and  practical  communion  with  man's  nature.  "  As  the 
air  is  the  element  in  which  man  moves,  and  yet  again  the 
element  of  life  which  is  present  within  the  man  :  so  the 
Pneuma-Christ  is  for  St.  Paul  both  the  ocean  of  the  Divine 


1  Phil.  ii.  6.    ■         »  Col.  i.  15-17.  ^  Col.  i.  17.  Rev.  Vers. 

*  Col,  iii.  II.  5  Eph.  iv.  13. 


ST.   PAUL'S  CHRISTOLOGY  33 

Being,  into  which  the  Christian  is  plunged,  and  a  stream 
which,  derived  from  that  ocean,  is  specially  introduced 
within  his  individual  life."  ^  This  brings  us  to  a  third  and 
most  distinctive  phase  of  all  mystical  teaching,  which  also 
derives  from  St.  Paul. 

(3)  "I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  This 
is  the  great  Pauline  watchword  of  the  spiritual  life.  It 
must  be  an  internal,  experimental  process.  From  the 
outset  it  was  so.  Even  when  describing  for  the  Galatians 
the  vision  near  Damascus  which  elsewhere  he  pictures  in 
objective  terms,  he  puts  aside  everything  that  was  outward 
— the  light,  the  voice — in  favour  of  the  interior  change 
which  these  but  symbolized.  "  When  it  pleased  the  Father 
to  reveal  His  Son  in  me."  "  In  me  ",  after  all,  and  not 
"  to  me  ".  In  fact,  with  St.  Paul,,  the  individual  Christian 
must  experience  personally  as  a  life  process  the  redemptive 
work  of  Christ.  The  victory  over  death  and  sin  was  achieved 
for  us ;  but  it  must  also  be  achieved  in  us.  The  soul,  in 
fact,  is  the  microcosm  in  which  a  universal  law  is  to  be 
carried  out,  "  My  little  children,  of  whom  I  travail  in 
birth  again,  until  Christ  be  formed  in  you  ".^  That  is  the 
beginning  of  the  process.  "  Buried  with  Him  by  baptism 
into  death  ".^  That  is  the  continuation.  "  Raised  to- 
gether with  Christ ",  "  walk  in  newness  of  life  "  :  ^  "if  ye 
then  be  risen  with  Christ,  seek  those  things  that  are  above  ",* 
these  are  further  steps  towards  such  an  identification  of 
being  that  at  last  "  to  live  is  Christ  ",^  "  Christ,  Who  is 
our  life  ".^  How  fruitful  this  doctrine  was,  and  how,  more 
than  anything  else,  it  served  to  save  Mysticism  from  a 
vague  craving  for  absorption  into  the  Absolute,  we  shall 
see  later.     Here  it  is  sufficient  to  note  its  prominence  and 

^  H.  T.  Holtzmann  :    Lehrbuch  der  N.T.  Theologie,  vol.  ii.    pp. 
79-80,  quoted  in  von  Hiigel. 

"  Gal.  iv.  17.         *  Rom.  vi.  4.         ^  Col.  iii.  i. 
5  Phil.  i.  21.  «  Col.  iii.  4.  /" 

M.C.  D 


34  MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

persistency  in  the  Pauline  thought.  Bethlehem,  Calvary, 
the  Resurrection  and  Ascension  are  to  be  re-enacted  within 
the  compass  of  the  human  soul. 

(4)  A  fourth  characteristic  of  Pauline  mysticism  is  the 
sanction  he  gives,  in  one  or  two  celebrated  passages  (Rom. 
vii.  1-4  ;  Eph.  v.  23-32),  to  the  teaching  regarding  Christ 
and  the  Church  which  represents  their  relationship  as  that 
of  a  Bridegroom  to  His  bride.  This  analogy  receives,  of 
course,  additional  warrant  from  the  Old  Testament,  where 
the  Jewish  Church  is  so  spoken  of  (Isa.  liv.  5  ;  Jer.  iii.  14)  ; 
from  some  parables  and  express' ons  of  our  Lord  ;  and 
from  one  or  two  passages  in  the  Apocalypse.  It  was  caught 
up,  however,  with  much  eagerness  by  the  Church,  and  the 
idea  so  developed  and  particularized,  that  it  became  one 
of  the  most  familiar  expressions  of  mystical  devotion. 
There  were  very  few  Greek  fathers  who  did  not  make  use 
of  it ;  Tertullian  is  found  suggesting  that  "  if  the  soul  is 
the  bride,  the  flesh  is  the  dowry  "  ^  of  Christ,  and  Dionysius 
in  justification  of  mystical  raptures  quotes  Ignatius'  phrase, 
"  My  love  has  been  crucified  ".  But,  on  the  whole,  the 
expression  was  confined  on  the  one  hand  to  the  love  of 
Christ  for  the  Church,  and  this,  even  in  St.  Bernard's  homi- 
lies on  the  Song  of  Solomon  ;  and  secondly,  to  the  love  of 
Christ.  The  first  conception  was  altered  to  that  of  the 
love  of  Christ  for  the  individual  soul,  mainly  by  the  mystics 
of  the  cloister,  2  and  then  gradually,  in  more  recent  times, 
perhaps  in  part  owing  to  the  renewed  influence  of  Eastern 
imagery  and  thought,  the  specific  figure  of  the  Christ  seems 
to  have  receded  into  the  background  and  we  hear  of  "  Divine 
touches  ",  "  real  but  purely  spiritual  sensations,  by  which 
the  soul  feels  the  intimate  presence  of  God,  and  tastes  Him 
with  great  delight ".     It  is  interesting  to  compare  in  this 

^  De  Resurrectione,  63. 

*  Cf.  esp.  Richard  of  St.  Victor  :  De  Quatuor  Gradibus  Violentae 
Charitaiis, 


ST.   PAUL  AND   THE   ECSTASY  35 

respect  the  poetry  of  Crashaw  in  the  seventeenth  century 
and  of  Coventry  Patmore  in  the  nineteenth,  both  of  them 
devout  CathoHc  Christians  ;  the  former  takes  the  humanity 
of  our  Lord,  under  every  possible  aspect,  as  the  object  of 
his  love  ;  with  the  latter,  whose  message  is  almost  exclusively 
that  of  human  marriage  as  the  ultimate  symbol  of  the  inter- 
course between  the  soul  and  its  Divine  Lover,  that  Lover 
is  always  God,  viewed,  as  it  were,  hand  sub  conditione. 

(5)  It  is  through  the  intimate  personal  notes  of  2 
Corinthians,  that  we  learn  of  St.  Paul's  experience,  at  least 
once,  of  the  highest  psychological  phase  of  Mysticism,  the 
Ecstasy.  Once  more  it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  differences 
that  separate  the  Ecstasy  from  mere  vision.  The  latter 
is  of  the  lowest,  the  former  occurs  during  the  highest  stages 
of  the  mystic  life.  Visions  may  occur  often,  the  Ecstasy 
is  one  of  the  rarest  of  experiences.  So  much  was  said  by 
way  of  attempted  definition  of  the  Ecstasy  in  the  Intro- 
ductory chapter  that  perhaps  all  that  is  needed  here  is  to 
remind  ourselves  of  one  important  distinction  besides. 
The  vision  or  trance,  which  includes  something  seen  and 
something  heard,  can  be  exactly  described  ;  the  Ecstasy 
is  so  far  a  ghmpse  or  audition  of  another  sphere  or  dimension 
of  being  that  its  experience  is  quite  indescribable  in  the 
language  of  this.  Now  v»'e  have  several  records  of  visions 
in  St.  Paul's  life,  one  only  of  the  Ecstasy.  The  former,  as 
we  have  noticed,  are  fairly  frequent  in  the  Acts,  bodily 
forms  are  seen,  and  voices  with  articulate  messages  of 
'  warning  or  encouragement  heard  ;  and  all  are  capable  of 
the  fullest  description.  There  is  but  one  psychic  experi- 
ence, (the  one  of  all  which  left  the  deepest  impress  on  the 
Apostle's  soul  and  even  some  permanent  mark,  it  would 
seem,  on  his  physical  being),  which  is  for  him  wholly  ineffable 
afterwards.  This  experience — of  the  "man  in  Christ" 
of  2  Corinthians  xii. — through  the  halting  words  that  seek 
to  express  it,  corresponds  so  curiously  to  the  "  notes  "  of 


36  MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

the  supreme  mystical  state  as  summarized  in  a  more  scien- 
tific age,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  make  a  comparison. 
First,  all  Professor  James'  "  marks  "  of  the  mj^stical  experi- 
ence are  there,  Transiency,  Passivity,  ("  whether  in  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body  I  cannot  tell  "),  Noetic  and  Authori- 
tative Quality,  and  last,  Ineffability,  (words  were  heard 
which  "  it  is  not  lawful  (possible)  to  utter  ").  But  there 
is  more  besides.  There  is  the  sense  of  a  veritable  Rapture, 
— the  subject  "  is  caught  "  ;  the  sense  of  a  -heightened 
consciousness — he  is  "  caught  up  "  to  a  sphere  of  being 
above  his  own,  symbolized  by  the  "  third  heaven  "  ;  and 
it  is,  in  the  double  emphasis  laid  on  "in  the  body,  or  out 
of  the  body,  I  cannot  tell,"  an  e/tcrTacrt9  in  the  true  meaning 
of  the  term.  That  the  record  of  such  an  experience  should 
occur  in  an  Epistle  indubitably  and  characteristically  St. 
Paul's  makes  it  all  the  more  noticeable. 

In  the  Johannine  writings  ^  another  great  body  of  mystical 
teaching  is  met  with.  It  presents  strong  contrasts  with 
that  of  St.  Paul.  To  many  minds  it  has  a  far  greater 
attraction  than  that  of  St.  Paul :  in  fact,  the  Fourth  Gospel 
has  been  named  "  the  charter  of  Mysticism".  To  the  age, 
again — an  age,  after  all,  of  giants — for  whose  difficulties 
the  study  of  Browning  suggested  satisfying  solutions,  the 
Johannine  message  was  really  the  last  word  and  the  most 
conclusive  on  Christianity ;  witness  "  The  Death  in  the 
Desert  ",  and  the  conclusion  of  Bishop  Blougram ;  and  to 
a  certain,  and  very  high,  type  of  intellect  it  is  so  still.  Yet, 
viewed  as  a  mystical  presentation  or  commentary  on  the^ 
Faith,  it  cannot  be  said  to  possess  a  universal  appeal.  It  is 
with  the  greatest  diffidence  that  we  should  trench  on  such 
debatable  ground  :  but  one  or  two  points  stand  out  clearly j 
on  any  examination  of  the  Johannine  Gospel  and  Epistles. 


^  It  is,  perhaps,  necessai-y  to  say  that  this  term  is  not  here  intendec 
to  include  the  Apocalypse. 


ST.   JOHN  AND   PHILO  37 

That  they  give,  by  their  own  method,  the  fullest  warrant 
for  a  mystical  apprehension  of  Christianity  is  beyond  ques- 
tion :  but  it  is  equally  beyond  question  that  the  appre- 
hension is  a  highly  specialized  one.  It  is  at  least  disputable 
whether  we  know  anything  as  to  the  author's  life  ;  but 
his  "  record  "  is  at  any  rate  by  far  the  latest  in  its  appear- 
ance. It  is,  in  fact,  absolutely  invaluable  as,  and  chiefly 
as,  the  impression  left  by  the  Christian  Faith  on  a  mind 
of  the  next  century  after  Christ,  and  fully  awake  to  the 
influence  of  the  next  century.  It  is  Christianity  entering 
on  a  new  v/orld,  a  new  inheritance,  and  proving  itself  capable 
of  absorbing  what  was  best  in  the  circumstances  of  current 
thought  and  feeling  around  it,  and  of  fulfilling  their  noblest 
aspirations.  This,  perhaps,  is  the  explanation  of  the  fleeting 
adoption  in  the  prologues  of  the  Gospel  and  the  First 
Epistle  of  the  Logos-doctrine.  For,  although  it  would 
be  unsafe  to  say  that  the  Johannine  Logos-doctrine  is 
derived  from  that  of  Philo,  ^  yet  here  we  have  the  remarkable 
coincidence  of  two  writers,  both  Jews,  both  strongly  bent 
on  bringing  in  the  authority  of  Moses  ^  for  their  philosophies, 
the  one  to  reconcile  Moses  and  Plato,  the  other,  Moses  and 
Christ,  and  both  defining  the  Logos  as  God  (with  Philo, 
"  the  second  God  "),  the  "  only  and  beloved  Son  of  God," 
by  ^Vhose  agency  the  worlds  were  made.  With  both  He 
is  the  Bread  of  God,  the  Convincer  of  sin  ;  connected  with 
Him  are  the  ideas  of  Intercessor  and  Comforter ;  He  is  the 
eternal  Image  of  the  Father,  and,  with  Philo,  we,  unfit  for 
direct  sonship  of  God,  may  yet  regard  ourselves  as  sons 

^  It  has  been  urged  that  the  dates  of  the  authors  approximate 
too  closely.  Still,  Philo  was  a  contemporary  of  St.  Paul,  and  the 
Logos-doctrine  was  certainly,  as  we  say,  "  in  the  air,"  at  the  time 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  however  early  we  place  it.  A  stronger  argu- 
ment is  the  fact  that  Philo's  work  exercised  little  influence  on  the 
philosophy  of  the  Second  Century. 

2  See  Inge  :  Christian  Mysticism,  p.  83.  Cf.  John  i.  17,  45  ;  ii. 
14  ;    V.  45,  47  ;    vi.  32  ;    vii.   19,  22,  23  ;    ix.  29,  30. 


38  MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

of  the  Logos.  Such  resemblances  can  hardly  be  a  long 
chain  of  chance  coincidences.  Wliere  the  separation  of 
thought  comes,  and  comes  decisively,  is  that  the  author 
of  the  Johannine  writings  adds  personality  to  his  conception 
of  the  Logos  and  identifies  Him,  as  Philo  never  attempted 
to  do,  with  the  Messiah,  in  set  terms. ^  But  then  he  claims 
emphatically,  in  both  Epistle  and  Gospel,  to  have  been  an 
eye-witness  of  a  life  lived  on  earth,  that  died  and  rose  again  : 
unlike  St.  Paul,  he  knows  "Christ  after  the  flesh",  and 
insists  on  that  knowledge  as  the  very  cornerstone  of  the 
Faith.  2 

What,  then,  are  the  contributions  of  St.  John  to  the 
mystical  element  in  religion  ?  W^e  may  say,  perhaps, 
three,  (i)  The  first,  that  by  this  very  insistence  on  a  his- 
torical revelation  in  time,  he  counterpoises  tlie  strong 
mys'lcl  tenlejicy  in  succeeding  ages  to  regard  the 
Gospel  story  as  a  kind  of  drama  merely,  correspondent  to 
a  more  vital  reality,  to  what  William  Law  called  "  the 
whole  process  of  Christ ",  His  birth,  death,  resurrection, 
within  the  soul.  In  another  sense  Mr.  A.  E.  Waite  declares 
the  same  evacuation  of  the  historical  Incarnation,  when'' 
he  says,  "  The  mystery  of  the  Passion  and  of  the  Lamb 
slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  is  one  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  unseen.  The  true  Golgotha  and  Calvary  are  not  of 
this  world".  Emphatically  the  Fourth  Evangelist  declares 
that  they  are,  that  the  Word  of  God  was  seen,  heard,  handled. 
Yet  he  views  what  he  holds  as  historical  under  so  mystical 
an  aspect,  that  it  would  be  right  to  say  that  for  him  all 
life  is  sacramental ;  above  all,  the  Life  of  lives.  It  is  nov 
as  evidence  chiefly  that  he  puts  dc.-vvn  \,'hat  he  remembers 
of  Christ's  doings  and  sayings.  The  words  are  valued 
above  the  "  works  ",  and  the  former  cannot  be  heard,  nor 
the  latter  seen,  aright,  unless  first  the  soul  has  experienced 

^  John  i.  41  ;    iv.  25,  26.  ^  j   John  iv.  3. 


SYMBOLISM   AND   ALLEGORISM  39 

a  process  of  illumination.  The  consequence  is  that  he 
puts  a  strong  emphasis  on  all  that  is  transacted  in  human 
life.  Things  are  important  in  themselves,  but  more  im- 
portant yet  because  they  symbolize  something  beyond 
them.  He  will  have  nothing  of  the  "  overthrow  of  that 
warrantable,  though  more  external,  frame  of  Christianity  ", 
which  Henry  More  lamented.  The  physical  and  the  spiritual 
which  God  has  put  together  for  us  here  are  not  to  be  sun- 
dered. A  spiritual  revelation  of  God  is  impossible  for  him 
without  its  physical  counterpart,  an  Incarnation,  nor  can 
he  tolerate  a  Christianity  which  lays  no  stress  on  the  earthly 
ministry  of  the  Lord.     He  views  life  whole. 

(2)  The  Johannine  writings  give  a  sanction,  and,  if  we 
will  study  them  carefully,  a  true  guidance,  to  the  use  of 
Symbolism  in  the  expression  of  mystical  thought.  It  is 
necessary  in  the  first  place,  to  be  sure  what  a  true  Symbolism 
implies.  For  while  we  find  a  writer  like  Recejac  announcing 
it  as  the  very  esssence  of  Mysticism, — Mysticism  being  in 
his  view  "  the  tendency  to  approach  the  Absolute,  morally, 
by  means  of  symbols  " — we  find  others  ready  to  deny  that 
it  has  anything  to  do  with  Mysticism,  whilst  many  would 
set  it  down  as  Allegorism,  or  at  least  be  by  no  means  clear 
as  to  the  distinction  between  the  two.  The  distinction  is, 
broadly,  this  :  Symbolism  is  teaching  based  on  what  is 
already  fact ;  Allegorism  is  teaching  conveyed  by  some 
effort  of  the  imagination.  According  to  the  intellect  and 
inspiration  of  the  allegorist,  so  is  the  worth  and  wealth  of 
his  message.  Allegorism,  therefore,  in  the  hands  of  the 
Divine  Master  Himself,  or  in  the  hands  of  a  gifted  seer,  like 
John  Bunyan,  has  conveyed  imperishable  truths.  On  the 
other  hand,  Allegorism  may  descend  to  be  the  plaything 
of  a  sort  of  gaudy,  over-decorated  Christian  nursery.  For 
be  it  noted  that  the  very  essence  of  the  allegory  is  that  it 
is  a  story,  an  invention  ;  we  do  not  regard  it  as  fact.  That 
is  true  alike  of  the  Parables  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  and  of 


40  MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  would 
come  to  be  a  danger,  in  some  ages  of  the  Church,  to  a  certain 
kind  of  ingenious  religious  fancy.  The  temptation  arose 
to  find  hidden  meanings  and  obscure  parallels  to  Christian 
doctrine  in  the  most  straightforward  and  historical  of  Old 
Testament  narratives.  By  a  very  swift  transition  these 
narratives  became  less  important  as  narrative  than  as 
allegory,  and  since  in  the  very  nature  of  allegory  was  bound 
up  the  something  of  fancy  rather  than  of  fact,  we  soon  find 
the  allegorist  commentators  on  the  Old  Testament  stories 
denying  their  importance,  or  indeed  necessary  veracity,  as 
history  at  all.  As  early  as  Clement  of  Alexandria  and 
Origen  this  was  so  ;  but  apart  from  so  extreme  a  develop- 
ment of  the  allegorical  tendency,  its  significance  to  us  is 
that,  unhappily,  such  playing  with  Bible  stories  is  still 
called  by  many  people  "  mystical  interpretation  ".  Need- 
less to  say,  there  is  nothing  whatever  mystical  about  it, 
though  some  of  these  far-fetched  glosses  have  the  merit 
of  a  curious  though  misdirected  ingenuity.^ 

But  what,  then,  is  Symbolism  ?  Let  us  return  to  our 
distinction.  Symbolism  is  founded  on  facts,  and,  what 
is  more,  on  universal  facts.  "  The  true  Mysticism  ",  said 
R.  S.  Nettleship,  "  is  the  belief  that  everything,  in  being 
what  it  is,  is  symbolic  of  something  more  ".  The  Symbolist 
goes  to  Natuie,  and  asks,  with  Milton, 

"  WTiat  if  earth 
Be  but  the  shadow  of  heaven,  and  things  therein 
Each  to  each  other  Uke,  more  than  on  earth  is  thought  ?  " 

Already  in  the  first  age  of  the  Church,  St.  Paul  had  given 
the  hint.  "  The  invisible  things  of  God  from  the  creation 
of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things 

^  The  Notes  of  Dr.  Neale's  translations  of  medieval  hymns  give 
many  instances  of  the  kind  referred  to  :  see  also  his  Commentary 
on  the  Psalms. 


SYMBOLISM   OF  THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL       41 

that  are  made,"  ^  but  he  scarcely  developed  the  thought. 
It  is  St.  John  who  takes  it  up,  and  makes  of  the  great  endur- 
ing powers  of  Nature,  her  methods  of  illumination,  of 
life,  of  nourishment,  of  cleansing,  the  precise  modes  through 
and  by  which  the  manifestation  of  the  Incarnate  Word  is 
gradually  effected  and  perfected,  at  once  on  the  stage  of  the 
world's  history  and  also  in  the  souls  of  men.  2  His  s ymbolism 
is  symbolism  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term.  There  is  notJiing 
arbitrar}^  or  forced  in  it.  For  in  the  original  connotation 
of  the  word  a  "  symbol  "  did  actually  convey,  on  a  lower 
plane,  that  which  it  represented  on  a  higher.  A  true 
symbol  always  is,  in  some  sense,  that  which  it  symbolizes. 
We  shall  see  the  meaning  of  this  statement  if  we  consider 
the  sjonbols  of  which  the  Fourth  Evangelist  makes  con- 
spicuous use  in  his  Gospel.  Thus  the  light  of  the  sun  does 
enlighten  the  bodily  steps  and  invigorate  the  bodily  life 
of  men,  while  it  also  stands  as  symbol  of  that  Eternal  Light 
of  the  soul  which  is  his  inward  guide  and  monitor.  Bread 
does  support  his  physical  strength,  even  while  it  is  "  not 
by  bread  alone  "  that  he  lives,  but  by  communion  with 
Him  Who  is  the  true  Bread  of  Life  sent  down  from  heaven. 
Water  purifies  and  refreshes  here,  while  yet  it  is  true  that 
the  accepted  message  of  Jesus  Christ  is  in  man  "  a  well  of 
water  springing  up  into  eternal  life ".  There  are  many 
other  symbols  of  the  mission  and  office  of  the  Son  of  God 
in  St.  John,  and  in  his  use  of  them  he  shows  more  than 
once  that  love  of  a  divine  paradox  which  is  closely  associated 
with  the  mystical  temperament,  but  is  only  after  all  the 
effort  to  express,  in  language  which  must  always  be  inade- 
quate, the  flashing  of  the  many  facets  of  the  one  diamond. 
Truth.     Thus  we  have  Christ  shown  to  us  as  the  Door,  the 

^  Rom.  i.  20. 

^  "  These  things  highest  and  divinest  which  it  is  given  us  to  see 
and  know  express  in  some  way  all  that  which  the  supreme  Nature 
of  God  includes."     Dion.  Areop.  De  Mysiica  Theologia,   13. 


43  MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Way  and  the  Shepherd  on  the  Way.  the  Truth  and  the 
Word  that  speaks  it,  the  Water  of  Life  and  the  Giver  of 
the  water,  the  Corn  of  Wheat  and  the  Bread,  the  En- 
hghtener  and  the  Light,  the  Revealer  and  the  Revealed. 

(3)  It  is  not  merely  thr  iigh  his  use  of  Symbolism,  how- 
ever, that  St.  John  is  claimed  as  one  of  the  prophets  of 
Mysticism,  but  by  the  idea  which  underlies  his  symbolism. 
This  idea,  worked  out  gradually  through  the  Gospel,  in- 
sisted upon  again  and  again  in  the  Epistles,  is  that  of 
unification  between  the  believer  and  his  Incarnate  Lord. 
St.  John,  indeed,  habitually  dwells  upon  and  illustrates 
the  third  and  highest  stage  in  the  spiritual  ascent.  But 
the  unifying  process  is  gradual  and  progressive.  It  starts, 
as  all  growth  starts,  from  a  seed.  Only  once  does  St.  John 
use  this  actual  expression,  but  the  expression  and  the  train 
of  thought  to  which  it  gave  rise,  were  afterwards  to  become 
of  vital  unportance  in  the  history  of  Mysticism.  "  Whoso- 
ever is  born  of  God  "  he  writes  ^  ..."  His  seed  is  in  him 
and  he  cannot  sin  because  he  is  born  of  God."  As  Pro- 
fessor Rufus  Jones  has  said,  "It  is  a  word  which  mystics 
have  again  and  again  adopted  to  express  the  implanting 
of  the  Divine  Life  within  the  human  soul.  It  means  that 
the  principle  by  which  a  man  lives  unto  God  and  resists 
the  tendencies  of  the  flesh  is  a  Divine  germ,  something  of 
God  '  received  '  into  the  soul,  a  new  life  principle  which 
expands  and  becomes  the  Life  of  the  person."  ^  But  the 
same  idea  is  really  innate  in  the  "  well  of  water  springing 
up  into  everlasting  life",  in  the  fruit-bearing  of  the  Vine, 
in  the  life-producing  gift  of  the  Bread.  It  is  remarkable 
that  in  St.  John  the  very  exercise  of  faith  takes  a  new 
turn.  It  is  in  this  Gospel  that  the  phrase  incrTevecv  el^i 
becomes  common.     It  is  a  virtue  that  extends  itself,  pro- 

1  I  John  iii.  g,  cf.  i  Pet.  i.  23,  and  cf.  John  xii.  24,  for  the  idea. 

2  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.   17. 


CHRIST  AND  THE  CHURCH  43 

jects  itself  towards  and  into  something.     "Faith",  wit! 
St.   John,   "  begins  with  an  experiment,  and  ends  in  an 
experience".    The    experience   is   that    of   self-dedication, 
the  identification  of  the  self  with  the  life,  aims,  hope,  "  ascen- 
sion "  of  Another.     "  We  are  in  Him  that  is  true  "  is  the 
burden  of  the  Epistle^;   "  that  we  may  be  onj  ''  is  the  prayer 
of   the  17th  chapter  of   the  Gospel.     It   is  a  gradual  pro- 
cess ;    step  by  step  must  be    taken,  grace   exchanged   for 
ever  fuller  grace,  and  it  is  accompanied  by  strange  and 
baffling    experiences    of    sorrow,    defeat,    and    pain.     The 
Cross,  with  St.  John,  is  a  "  lifting  up  ",  a  stage  in  the  upward 
jourucv  to  a  fuUer  and  Divine  life,     li.ut  that  the  life  of 
absorption  in  the  Christ  is,  not  servitude,  nor  limitation, 
but  a  life  of  infinitely  extended  relations,  "  life  that  is  life 
indeed  "  in  its  realities  of  interaction,  service,  helpfulness, 
is  revealed  by  the  wonderful  symbol  of  the  Vine  and  its 
branches.     This  is  the  climax  of  the  Gospel's  symbolism, 
as  it  is  the  summing  up  of  its  message  :   and  it  is  significant 
that  the  picture  of    so  actual  a  community  of  sympathy, 
interests,  love  as  makes  up  the  intense  life  of  the  society 
instead  of  the  partial  existence  of  the  isolated  self,  should 
be  represented  ^as  uttered  by  the  lips  of  a  historical  Person- 
age,   a   Friend   speaking   concerning   fellowship   with   His 
friends.  1    This  doctrine  of  the  "  unus  Christus  " — as  St. 
Augustine  describes  the  unification  of  Christ  and  His  mem- 
bers— is,  of  course,  to  be  found  also  in  St.  Paul,  but  under 
the  less  mystical  figure  of  a  body  and  its  members,  a  body 
of  which  Christ  is  the  Head.     It  is  the  absolute  identifica- 
tion of  the  life  of  Christ  with  that  of  His  disciples— the 
"  ye  in  Me,  and  I  in  you  " — which  makes  St.  John  the 
master  of  this  school  of  mystical  theology. 

St.  John  and  St.  Paul  are  the  two  great  mystical  thinkers 

^  The  question  of  the  absolute  historicity  of  tlie  Johannine  dis- 
courses does  not,  of  course,  meet  us  here.  The  point  is  that  they 
were  intentionally  so  represented  by  the  writer. 


44  MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

of  the  New  Testament ;  but  gleams  and  touches  from  that 
other  world  in  which  the  after  mystics  habitually  lived  are 
met  with  in  the  pages  of  other  writers. 

St.  Peter,  who  shares  the  Johannine  conception  as  to  the 
"  incorruptible  seed  ",  echoes  the  thought  of  both  St.  John 
and  St.  Paul  as  to  the  timelessness  of  the  redemptive  pro- 
cess ;  it  is  an  eternal  life  manifested  indeed  as  born,  dying, 
risen  again  in  time,  but  its  Idea,  or  Principle  exists  beyond 
any  time-series.  The  Lamb  of  God  was  fore-ordained  to 
this  redemptive  sacrihce  "  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world  ",  and  the  words  are  repeated  in  a  more  daring  phrase 
yet  by  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse,  who  speaks  of  the 
"  Lamb  slain  from  tlie  foundation  of  the  world  ".  Three 
lesser  conceptions,  dear  to  the  hearts  of  mystics,  are  also 
found  in  the  "  Catholic  "  epistles  and  in  the  Apocalypse. 
One  is  the  thought  of  the  mirror,  into  which  a  man  looks  and 
finds,  according  to  St.  James,  the  face  of  his  true  self,  to 
TrpoacoTTov  t?}?  yeieaeo)';  uvtov,^  a  variant  in  phrase,  though 
scarcely  in  essential  meaning,  from  St.  Paul's  "  glory  of  the 
Lord  "  into  which  we,  by  looking,  are  changed.  A  second 
thought  is  that  common  both  to  St.  Peter  and  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  of  this  mortal  life  as  an  exile,  a  place  of 
pilgrimage  and  yearning  progress.-  The  comparison  of 
life  to  a  pilgrimage  might  be  taken  merely  as  a  beautiful 
and  natural  way  of  picturing  the  toils  and  struggles  of  the 
way  to  heaven,  especially  amongst  Eastern  peoples  to  whom 
the  practice  of  making  pilgrimages  was,  as  it  is  still,  so 
familiar  a  method  of  piety.  To  the  Jews,  for  example, 
with  their  annual  journeyings  to  the  great  Paschal  festival, 
the  analogy  would  at  once  commend  itself.  Yet  it  is  strange 
to  trace  the  effects  of  the  words  in  the  Hebrews  and  St. 
Peter,  compelling  as  they  are  in  their  wistful  and  sorrowing 
pathos,  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  imagination.      Not 

^  Jas.  i.  23. 

2  Heb.  xi.  13-16;  xiii.  14;  i  Pet.  i.  17;  ii.  11. 


IDEAS  OF  PILGRIMAGE  AND  CITY-GOAL     45 

only  were  they  taken  up  in  all  practical  seriousness  by  the 
Medieval  Church  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  but,  in  the 
form  of  the  Crusades,  they  changed  the  history  of  Europe, 
and  in  this  country,  the  pilgrimage  to  one  particular  shrine 
moulded  part  at  least  of  our  social  life  and  intercourse. 
In  more  modern  days  the  idea  still  remained  a  favourite 
one  in  hymns  and  devotional  books,  and  the  very  word 
"  parish "  is,  by  derivation,  "  the  pilgrims'  sojourning 
place  ".  All  this,  after  all,  in  passing.  In  Mysticism,  above 
and  beside  other  interest,  the  conception  of  life  as  an  exile 
and  a  pilgrimage  had  this  peculiar  importance  that  it  was 
closely  allied  with  the  idea  of  the  soul's  emanation  from, 
quest  after,  and  return  to,  "  God  Who  is  our  home  ". 

This  brings  us  to  the  last  of  the  special  ideas  allied  to 
the  mystic  mood,  which  we  find  in  the  New  Testament. 
Jerusalem,  the  city-goal  "  whither  the  tribes  go  up  ",  sug- 
gested to  Hebrew  minds  the  picture  of  an  ideal  city  "  Jeru- 
salem which  is  from  above  "  as  the  term  of  the  soul's 
pilgrimage.  It  is  in  two  specially  Hebraic  writings  that  the 
idea  makes  its  appearance  and  is  insisted  on — the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Apocalypse.  The  father  of  all 
faithful  pilgrims,  Abraham,  "  looked  ",  we  are  told,  "  for 
a  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose  builder  and  maker 
is  Gods".  "  Here  we  have  no  continuing  city,  but  we  seek 
one  to  come."  God  has  prepared  for  us  "  a  city",  ^  and 
this  city  is  described  for  us  with  every  detail  of  allegorical 
beauty  in  the  21st  and  22nd  chapters  of  the  Apocalypse. 
Such  a  message  came  with  vivid  appeal  to  a  world  whose 
three  great  representative  nationalities,  the  religious, 
the  intellectual,  and  the  imperial,  looked  each  to  a  city- 
centre,  Jerusalem,  Athens,  and  Rome ;  but,  whatever 
be  its  continued  persuasiveness  elsewhere,  it  has  never  lost 
its  power  of  mingled  strength  and  sweetness  for  English 

^  Heb.  xi.  10,  16  ;    xiii.  14. 


46  MYSTICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

ears.  This  is  in  part,  no  doubt,  owing  to  the  extraordinary 
force  and  charm  of  the  EngKsh  Authorized  Version  of  the 
Apocalypse  ;  partly  to  the  fact  that  in  England  all  this 
imagery  of  pilgrimage  and  of  a  city  as  its  goal  received 
illustration  and  a  lasting  emphasis  in  the  wonderful 
"Dream"  of  the  Puritan  tinker;  partly,  by  the  English 
veneration  and  cult  of  the  home  life,  and  the  desire,  in  con- 
sequence, to  think  of  death  as  a  "  going  home  ",  home  in 
some  safe  place  of  meeting,  of  recognition,  of  ordered  work 
and  rest  such  as  a  City.  Yet  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the 
poets,  who  are  the  mystics  of  our  day,  have  seen  their  vision 
of  a  City  too,  but  of  a  City  more  ethereal  yet  more  endur- 
ing, lit  by  "  the  light  that  was  never  yet  on  land  or  sea  ". 
Tennyson  sings  : 

"  I  saw  the  spiritual  city  and  all  her  spires 
And  gateways  in  a  glory  like  one  pearl — - 
No  larger,  tho'  the  goal  of  all  the  saints," 

And  Francis  Thompson  can 

"  dimly  guess  what  Time  in -mists  confounds  ; 
Yet  ever  and  anon  a  trumpet  sounds 
From  the  hid  battlements  of  Eternity  ; 
Those  shaken  mists  a  space  unsettle,  then 
Round  the  half-glimpsed  turrets  slowly  wash  again." 

And  Matthew  Arnold,  to  whom  also  the  vision  came  by 
the  touch  of  a  noble  memory  nobly  sung,  feels  the  ancient 
ache  as  of  exile  and  the  sure  impulse  of  the  age-long  pil- 
grimage, 

"  On  to  the  bound  of  the  waste. 
On  the  city  of  God  ". 


CHAPTER    III 

The  Montanists,  the  Gnostics,  and  the 
Alexandrines 

CHRISTIANITY  is  a  personal  experience  ;  it  is  also ', 
a  religion  professing  a  universal  claim.  On  both  ' 
these  counts,  the  individual  and  the  catholic,  its  note  has 
had  to  be  one  of  jva}ai<i  from  the  beginning  ;  it  must  feel 
and  know,  and  if  it  is  to  be  the  one  exclusive  faith,  it  must 
feel  and  know  better  and  more  fully  than  is  possible  with 
any  other  systems  of  belief,  and  must  be  able  to  sum  up 
and  fulfil  all  that  is  good  and  of  promise  in  them.  At  least 
three  great  movements  of  thought  in  the  early  Church 
arose,  in  one  shape  or  another,  from  this  insistence  on  know- 
ledge or  experience,  and,  in  part  due  to  this  very  insistence, 
there  are  affinities  to  Mysticism  in  each.  They  also  very 
plainly  show  the  peculiar  reactions  that  took  place  with 
regard  to  Christianity  itself,  from  its  necessary  contact  with 
the  faiths  and  philosophies  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Empire  ; 
and,  in  two  instances  at  any  rate,  these  reactions  spelt 
danger  to  the  Church. 

Of  these  movements  the  first  consideration  is  Montanism, 
Its  ideas  were,  however,  spiritual,  not  intellectual ;  it  was 
certainly  a  reaction,  in  the  minds  of  its  supporters,  yet  a 
reaction  due  to  no  influence  outside  the  Church,  but  from 
what  they  supposed  to  be  a  wrong  trend  of  life  within  it. 
It  will  be  convenient  to  consider  it  here,  since  its  motive 

47 


48    MONTANISTS,  GNOSTICS,  AND  ALEXANDRINES 

power  was  an  insistence  on  knowledge,  on  a  personal  experi- 
ence, and  it  is  also  not  impossible  that  in  certain  psychic 
characteristics  of  the  movement  it  borrowed  part  of  its 
impulse  from  outside  pagan  mysteries. 

Part,  though,  only.      Montanus,  its  founder,  who  made 
his  first  appearance  about  170,  had  been  a  priest  of  Cybele 
in    his    ante-Christian    da^i^s.     He    was    a    Phrygian,    and, 
preaching  in  the  regions  near  Galatia,  preached  to  a  people 
naturally   impressionable   and   excitable   and   very   ready, 
from  "  the  sibylline  strain  "  in  them,  to  receive  his  message. 
That  message  was,  practically,  "  Back  to  primitive  Christi- 
anity !  "     We  know,  though  we  do  not  know  the  process, 
that   during   a   hundred   years   of   post-Apostolic   life   the 
Church  had  completed  the  system  of  its  ministry,  and  that 
the  three  orders  of  that  ministry,  bishop,  priest,  and  deacon, 
had  practically  assumed  the  functions,  the  authority,  and 
the  grades  of  service  which  they  have  ever  since  retained. 
But,  to  Montanus,  the  writings  of  the  Apostles   contained 
other  elements  of  the  Christian  ministry  and  of  the  individual 
Christian's  experience  which  he  believed  to  be  essential, 
and  to  be  in  danger,  under  a  formal  system,  of  passing  out 
of  remembrance.     He  sought  to  revive  in  himself  the  func- 
tion of  the  "  prophet  "  ;    he  announced  the  existence  still 
of  the  prophetic  "  charismata  "  ;    he  refused  to  accept  the 
view,  already  in  vogue,  that  the  Apostolic  period  was  one 
of  special  light  and  inspiration,  never  to  be  expected  again  ; 
he  laid  stress  on  a  progressive  revelation  to  the  Church, 
dwelling  much  on  the  promises  of  development  contained 
in  the  last  discourses  of  St.  John's  Gospel.     In  some  ways 
the  Montanists  were  representative  of  a  spirit  always  latent 
and  always  needed  in  the  Christian  Church,  the  spirit  of 
revolt    against    formalism    and    conventionaHsm ;     in    its 
emphasis  on  the  importance  of  the  individual  experience 
of  life,   wholly  so.     Indeed,   it  gave  saints  and  martyrs, 
Perpetua  and  Felicitas,  to  the  Church  Calendar,  and  one 


MONTANISM  49 

great  genius,  at  least,  Tertullian,  to  the  roll  of  its  apologists ; 
at  one  time  it  very  nearly  gained  recognition  from  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  as  a  fully  Catholic  movement.  But  it 
was  in  the  method  whereby  the  individual's  experience 
reached  him  that  Montanus  made  the  mistake,  or  rather 
laid  the  undue  emphasis,  which  by  its  exaggerations  stamped 
him  and  his  followers  as  heretical.  He  had  evidently  him- 
self experienced  the  Ecstasy, — perhaps  his  former  life  had 
rendered  him  especially  susceptible  to  such  psycho-spiritual 
states — and  he  found  in  the  Pauline  writings  warrant  for 
what  he  had  felt ;  but  he  lifted  his  experience  out  of  the 
realm  of  the  exceptional  to  that  of  the  normal.  The  reign 
or  dispensation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  had  come,  he  taught, 
and  the  working  of  the  Spirit  would  show  itself  in  the  com- 
plete supersession  of  human  nature  by  the  Spirit's  indwelling. 
There  would  take  place,  not  a  gradual  transformation  "  from 
glory  to  glory",  but  nothing  short  of  possession.  "  Man," 
he  says— and  the  saying  is  that  of  a  mystic  who  has  travelled 
too  far — "  man  is  like  a  lyre,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  plays  on 
him  like  a  plectrum  ;  man  sleeps,  the  Spirit  is  awake." 
The  "  immediacy  "  of  Divine  intercourse  in  this  is  attract- 
ive ;  but  it  is  an  immediacy  that  turns  man  into  a  mere 
medium  or  instrument,  destroys  personality  as  a  condition 
of  the  intercourse  itself,  and  so  in  turn  would  induce  a 
nescience  of  the  Personality  of  God.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  case,  however,  with  Montanus,  in  his  followers 
the  Ecstasy  soon  sank  into  mere  visionariness,  and  beautiful 
as  are  some  of  the  visions,  say,  of  St.  Perpetua,  so  far  is  it 
from  the  fact  that  all  human  emotions  or  conditions  are 
"  put  to  sleep  "  during  them,  that  her  visions,  like  ordinary 
dreams,  are  full  of  human  associations.  With  the  later 
Montanists,  the  visions  became  "  oracles  ",  and  what  was 
in  inception  partly  a  protest  for  spiritual  freedom  turned 
into  a  new,  and  severe,  code  of  arbitrary  laws. 

(2)  The  importance  of  Gnosticism  does  not  lie  in  anything 
M.c.  E 


50    MONTANISTS,  GNOSTICS,  AND  ALEXANDRINES 

that  it  had  in  common  with  Mysticism.  Its  only  affinities 
with  the  latter  lay  in  the  attempt  which  it  made  to  solve 
two  problems  which  always  confront  the  mystic,  namely, 
the  relations  of  the  Absolute  to  the  world  of  matter,  and 
the  existence  of  evil.  But  there  the  resemblance  stops. 
The  "  speculations  "  of  the  gnostic  were  speculations  not 
in  the  sense  of  some  spiritual  truth  actually  discerned,  even 
though  "  in  a  glass  darkly  ",  but  speculations  in  the  normal 
meaning  of  the  word  as  we  use  it  now — guesswork,  and 
often  wild  guesswork,  of  the  imagination.  It  was  indeed 
7i/a)o-f 9  "  falsely  so  caUed  ",  for  to  our  modern  temper  there 
was  nothing  of  "  knowledge  "  about  the  theories  of  the 
Syrian  Saturninus,  or  of  the  Alexandrians  Basilides  and 
Valentinus.  All  traces  of  authoritative  intuition  as  well 
as  of  the  humility  of  the  seeker  after  truth  are  absent  from 
the  "  metaphysics  of  wonderland "  in  which  Valentinus 
and  his  feUows  indulged,  a  veritable  "  Pelagianism  of  the 
intellect",  as  Dorner  has  weU  phrased  it.  Moreover,  the 
hopeless  dualism  in  which  Gnosticism  finally  issued  is  quite 
alien  from  the  mystical  instinct  after  a  basic  unity.  For 
all  that,  Gnosticism  has  a  critical  importance  in  the  history 
of  thought  and  even  of  Christian  mystical  thought.  The 
religious  intellect  of  the  second  century  was  powerfully 
influenced  by  Platonism,  and  especially  by  one  of  Plato's 
works,  the  Timacus.  The  Timaeus  teaches  that  God,  being 
essentially  good,  is  withdrawn  from  the  creation  far  into 
some  supreme  heaven  so  as  to  avoid  contact  with  matter 
and  its  inherent  evil.  Now  Gnosticism  was  reaUy  a  parade 
of  "  the  ideas  of  Plato  seen  through  the  fog  of  an  Egyptian 
or  Syrian  mind."  ^  All  the,  to  us,  uncouth  jargon  of  a 
lower  God  of  creation,  the  Demiurge,  the  fantastic  lists 
of  ever  descending  aeons  with  their  partners  and  progenies, 

^  Bigg  :  Christian  Platonists,  p.  27.  See  for  an  excellent  brief 
sketch  of  the  Gnostics  Dr.  Workman's  Christian  Thought  to  the 
Reformation,  pp.  31-39. 


GNOSTICISM  51 

which  the  Gnostics  used  to  bridge  the  baffling  gulf  between 
the  Absolute  and  this  universe,  have  an  intense  underlying 
significance.  What  may  perhaps  be  faintly  traced  in  one 
man's  mind,  in  the  case  of  Montanus,  is  here  seen  on  an 
enormous  scale  and  through  the  lapse  of  centuries,  the 
clash  and  mingling  of  Christian  and  pagan  systems  of 
thought.  If,  as  Dr.  Workman  says,  "  the  first  effect  of 
the  contact  of  Christianity  with  Hellenism  was  somewhat 
disastrous  to  the  Church  ",  if  "  the  meeting  of  the  two 
streams  led  to  a  welter,  in  the  whirlpools  of  which  many 
were  lost ",  still  something  was  gained.  A  foundation  was 
laid — for  even  St.  Paul  uses  in  a  favourable  sense  such 
terms  of  speculative  Theism  as  Gnosis  and  Pleroma,  and 
St.  John  brings  his  writings  into  relation  with  current  outside 
thought — for  nobler  and  more  enduring  movements  of 
reconciliation  to  come.  Gnosticism  sought  to  harmonize 
with  the  Gospel  all  sorts  and  scraps  of  Hellenistic  thought 
and  of  Eastern  theosophy,  to  the  latter  of  which  ideas  of 
emanations  and  unreal  incarnations  were  not  strange.  Yet 
the  very  motive  was  of  the  utmost  moment,  though  it  cost 
the  Church  sore  struggles  with  heresies  bent  on  evacuating 
the  Incarnation  of  all  historical  reality.  For  "  Gnosticism, 
both  within  and  without  the  Church,  was  an  attempt  to 
complete  the  reconciliation  between  speculative  and  revealed 
religion,  by  systematizing  the  symbols  of  transcendental 
mystical  theosophy.  The  movement  can  only  be  under- 
stood as  a  premature  and  unsuccessful  attempt  to  achieve 
whatjthe  school  of  Alexandria  afterwards  partially  succeeded 
in  doing."  1 

(3)  So  we  come  to  the  far  more  lasting  and  important 
phase  of  Christian  thought  known  as  Alexandrianism.  Of 
Philo's  work  something  has  already  been  said.  His  thought 
was  that  of  a  true  mystic  ;  his  object  that  which  became 
the  passion  of  the  next  one  or  two  centuries,  the  synthesis 

^  Inge:    Christian  Mysticism,  p.  81. 


52     MONTANISTS,  GNOSTICS,  AND  ALEXANDRINES 

of  his  religion  and  the  best  philosophy  of  his  time.  In  his 
own  case  this  meant  reconciliation  of  Platonism  and  Juda- 
ism, and  we  have  seen  how  interesting  v/ere  the  affinities 
of  his  Logos-doctrine — though  we  need  not  forget  its  points 
of  difference — with  those  of  the  Fourth  Evangelist.  Still 
more  important,  perhaps,  as  reflecting  a  state  of  ethical 
opinion  which  was  destined  to  grow  and  to  influence  deeply 
the  Church,  was  his  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  life.  Only 
by  the  renunciation  of  the  self  can  either  virtue  or  know- 
ledge be  attained.  Contemplation  is  exalted  above  the 
active  virtues, — the  soul  must  shun  the  whirlpool  of  Hfe  and 
not  even  touch  it,  it  were  better  for  it  "  to  cut  off  its  right 
hand  " — and  the  highest  vision  of  God  is  attained  by  the 
knowledge  not  of  reason  but  of  "  clear  certainty  ".  This 
is  very  hke  the  authoritative  intuition  of  the  Ecstasy. 
But  Philo's  own  influence  on  his  times  seems  to  have  been 
smaller  than  might  be  expected.  The  unpopularity  of  the 
Jews  and  of  their  faith,  to  which  certain  passages  in  the 
Acts,  the  scorn  poured  upon  them  by  satirists  such  as  Juve- 
nal, and  various  anti-Semitic  riots  up  and  down  the  Empire 
alike  bear  witness,  may  account  for  his  work  passing  com- 
paratively unnoticed.  It  is  different  when  we  come  to  the 
man  who,  150  years  later,  set  himself  to  do  for  Christianity 
what  Philo  had  conceived  it  possible  to  do  for  Judaism. 
It  is  to  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  that  the  Church  owed 
in  large  measure  the  priceless  impulse  to  gather  in,  reconcile, 
.'Tssimilate  to  its  own  teaching  what  was  truly  durable  and 
luminous  in  the  vast  treasuries  of  human  thought  around 
it,  the  impulse  to  move  in  the  van,  and  not  to  lag  with  a 
dumb  hostiUty  in  the  rear,  of  intellectual  progress.  "  The 
way  of  truth",  said  Clement,  "  is  one.  But  into  it  as  into 
a  perennial  river  streams  flow  from  all  sides."  It  was  a 
bold  undertaking  this,  the  incorporation  into  the  Faith  of 
all  that  was  best  in  the  culture  of  the  Hellenic  world  ;  next 
to  St.   Paul's  deliberate  de-Judaizing  of  Christianity,  the 


ALEXANDRIANISM  53 

.boldest  work  ever  wrought  for  the  Church.  It  set  the 
example  and  opened  the  way  for  the  after-entry  of  Neo- 
Platonism,  for  the  work  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  the 
Schoolmen,  for  the  Humanist  efforts  at  the  Reformation, 
unhappily  unsuccessful  with  both  warring  parties,  of  Eras- 
mus and  the  Oxford  Reformers  ;  it  is  eloquent  to  the  Church 
of  the  present  day.^  Dr.  Hort's  praise  of  the  great  Alex- 
andrian father  is  well-deserved  :  "  There  is  no  one  whose 
vision  of  what  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  was  intended  to  do 
for  mankind  was  so  full  or  so  true,"  2 

Clement  was  born  about  150,  and  by  birth  and  training 
was  probably  an  Athenian.  Then  he  came  to  Alexandria 
and  settled  down  to  work  in  the  great  Christian  catechet- 
ical school  founded  there  in  the  latter  half  of  the  second 
century  by  Pantaenus,  a  man  who  illustrated  well  Clement's 
own  maxim  that  "  conduct  follows  knowledge  as  the 
shadow  follows  the  body  "  by  going  in  his  old  age  as  a 
missionary  to  India.  Alexandria,  then  the  second  city  in 
the  Empire,  was  a  place  of  which,  even  more  emphatically 
than  of  Athens,  might  have  been  uttered  St.  Luke's  de- 
scription of  the  latter  place  at  the  time  of  Paul's  visit.  It 
had  its  famous  University ;  in  its  midst  met  and  jostled 
every  kind  of  current  thought  and  speculation ;  each 
"  new  thing  "  as  it  arose  was  eagerly  discussed,  as  well 
as  the  problem  of  the  "  Unknown  God  ".  For  Alexandria 
was  the  link  between  East  and  West,  and  at  this  time  the 
particular  home  of  "  three  great  tendencies  then,  as  now, 
potent  in  shaping  the  thoughts  of  men,  Egyptian  sym- 
bolism with  its  esoteric  beliefs  and  ancient  priesthood, 
Jewish  monotheism,  and  Greek  science,  philosophy  and 
culture."  3    It   was   in   the   midst    of   such   surroundings, 


^  Cf.  Workman  :    Christian  Thought  to  the  Reformation,  pp.  44 
et  seq. 

*  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  p.  93.         *  Workman  :    op.  cit.  p.  46. 


54    MONTANISTS,  GNOSTICS,  AND  ALEXANDRINES 

where  thought  was  free,  and  speculation  rampant,  that 
there  flourished  the  invaluable  Christian  school,  with  its 
tuition  of  mathematics  and  sciences,  of  the  Greek  philo- 
sophies, and  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  as  prepara- 
tory to  the  higher  knowledge  of  the  Faith,  and  it  was  during 
his  years  of  connexion  with  this  school  for  catechumens 
and  ordination  candidates  that  Clement  worked  at  note 
books, — "  Stromafeis,"  or  "  Clothes  Bags,"  as  he  called 
them — on  the  True  Philosophy,  and  at  the  "  Pedagogue", 
his  rationale  of  the  Christian  life  and  experience. 

It  is  necessary  to  understand  the  circumstances  of  St. 
Clement's  life  and  work  in  general,  because  they  provide 
us  with  the  key  to  the  important  contributions  which  he 
made  to  the  body  of  mystical  doctrine  within  the  Church. 
It  is  curious  how  opinions  differ  as  to  Clement's  personal 
claim  to  be  a  mystic.  Thus  Dr.  Inge  names  him,  along 
with  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  a  "  founder  of  Christian 
Mysticism ",  Dr.  Bigg,  in  his  "  Christian  Platonists  of 
Alexandria  ",  calls  him  the  father  of  all  the  Christian  mys- 
tics, but  no  mystic  himself,  while  Dr.  Rufus  Jones  recog- 
nizes that  "  in  high  moods  he  hit  upon  elemental  facts  of 
universal  religious  experience  ",  but  otherwise,  rather  than 
a  mystic  was,  like  Origen  and  Athanasius,  a  profound 
thinker,  "  interpreting  Christianity  to  the  Greek  mind 
through  the  historical  forms  of  Greek  thought."  ^  The 
truth  is  that  he  was  no  ecstatic,  but  a  "  cultivated,  hu- 
mane, and  genial  personality  ",  in  thought  discursive  rather 
than  deep,  and  extremely  receptive  to  the  ideas  current 
in  that  mingled  world  in  which  he  moved.  But  for  that 
V3ry  reason  his  teaching  in  at  least  two  directions  marks 
an  era  in  Christian  thought.  In  his  pre-Christian  days 
he  had  been  conversant  with  the  various  aspects  and  prac- 
tices   of    Pagan    religious    systems.     Prominent    amongst 

1  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  83. 


ST.  CLEMENT  AND  MYSTERY-TERMS         55 

these,  the  outstanding  feature  indeed  of  Hellenic  religion 
of  the  time,  was  the  cult  of  the  Mysteries,  themselves 
perhaps  the  survivals  of  some  old-world  kind  of  Nature- 
Mysticism.  We  may  take  the ' '  public  mysteries  ' '  of  Eleusis, 
a  place  near  Athens,  as  typical  of  the  kind  of  rites  observed. 
First  of  all,  the  "  mystae  ",  who  assembled  at  Athens,  had 
to  undergo  a  fast  of  several  days,  and  then,  after  confess- 
ing the  worst  of  their  sins,  were  baptized  either  in  the 
sea  or  in  a  salt  lake  on  the  road  to  Eleusis.  This  baptism 
washed  away  the  guilt  of  former  sins,  and  was  followed 
by  certain  sacrifices  and  by  the  witnessing  of  Mystery- 
plays  in  which  the  truths  to  be  communicated  to  the 
initiates  were  represented  in  shadow  outline.  The  whole 
culminated  in  a  sacramental  meal  partaken  together  by 
the  initiates. 

Now  it  is  extremely  easy  to  trace  curious  resemblances 
and  coincidences  between  such  ritual  as  this  and  external 
Christianity.  To  Clement  of  Alexandria  first,  and  to  a 
succession  of  theologians  after  him  from  the  third  to  the 
fifth  centuries,  it  became  almost  a  passion  "  to  transfer 
to  the  faith  and  practice  of  the  Church  almost  every  term 
which  was  associated  with  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  and 
others  like  them."  ^  A  great  sentence  of  his  is  probably 
well  known,  but  it  is  so  symptomatic  of  the  medium  through 
which  he  viewed  Christianity  that  it  may  well  be  quoted 
here  :  "Oh  truly  sacred  mysteries  !  Oh  stainless  light ! 
My  way  is  lit  with  torches  and  I  survey  the  heavens  and 
God.  I  am  become  holy  while  I  am  being  initiated,  and 
the  Lord  is  my  hierophant."  "Knowledge"  with  him 
"  is  more  than  faith."  The  Christian  revelation  is  de- 
scribed as  "the  holy  mysteries",  "the  Divine  secrets", 
and  of  these  "  mysteries  of  the  Word  "  Christ  is  the  Teacher  ; 


1  Inge  :  Christian  Mysticism,  Appendix  B.  q.v.  for  a  full  discussion 
of  the  subject. 


56    MONTANISTS,  GNOSTICS,  AND  ALEXANDRINES 

we  find  within  tlie  Church,  a  reproduction  of  the  two 
grades  of  initiates  at  Eleusis  there  are  the  mere  "  mysiae  " , 
who  only  know  the  ordinary  teaching  of  the  Faith,  and 
there  are  the  "  epopts  "  {iiroTTrai),  to  whom  the  higher 
wisdom  of  the  true  Gnostic  has  been  vouchsafed.  Just 
as  in  the  Greek  mysteries,  so  in  the  Christian  Faith,  strict 
secrecy  is  to  be  observed  towards  "  the  profane  ",  the  out- 
sider. The  lower  stages  of  purifying  discipline  are  ra 
fiLKpa  iivaTrjpia,  "  the  little  mysteries  "  ;  the  highest  spirit- 
ual plane  is  e-n-oTrTeia.  So  far  as  regards  practice  ;  and 
the  use  of  such  mystery-terms  in  expounding  Christian 
doctrine  was  far  more  extended  by  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
Chrysostom  and  Athanasius.  As  regards  inner  doctrine, 
there  is  one  feature  of  the  Mystery-religions  which  Clement 
transported  into  the  scheme  of  mystical  theology  in  the 
Church,  and  which  owes  itself  directly  to  him.  The  main 
object  of  initiation  into  the  Mysteries  was  to  obtain  sal- 
vation, for  the  longing  for  salvation  was  especially  promi- 
nent throughout  the  world  of  the  first  centuries  of  our 
era.  But  in  what  did  "  salvation "  consist  ?  In  the 
gift — and  this  idea  was  common  to  Christians  and  Pagans 
alike — of  everlasting  life.  Now  this  everlasting  life — 
immortality — was  a  peculiar  attribute  of  the  gods.  It 
was  confen-ed,  the  current  thought  ran,  on  any  one  who 
participated  in  the  mysteries,  by  revelation  [gnosis),  and 
b}^  the  sacramental  washing  and  eating,  and  it  took  effect 
through  a  resultant  purity  of  Ufe.  Now  Clement  not  only 
embraces  the  mystery-definition  of  salvation,  but  pushes 
the  thought  further.  The  acquisition  of  this  immortal 
life  will  be  in  some  sense  a  "  deification  ".  The  word  and 
notion  became  familiar  to  mystical  theologians,  however 
alien  and  even  repellent  they  appear  to  us  ;  and  it  was 
Clement  who  brought  them  over  first  from  Paganism  into 
Christianity.      to    /i,^    (f)66iptcrdac    OeiOTr^TO^   fxere^ecv    iari,^ 

^  "  To  be  immortal  (imperishable)  is  to  share  in  the  Divine  nature." 


ST.   CLEMENT   AS   MYSTIC  57 

he  says  in  the  Stromatcis.  But  in  this  and  other  matters 
he  evidently  dehghts  in  his  work  of  synthesis.  The  Church 
is  heir,  he  thinks,  of  all  that  is  best  in  thought  and  life, 
not  only  Hebraic,  but  Greek,  which  has  gone  before  it. 
Perhaps  to  act  as  pioneer  in  this  great-hearted  task  of 
comprehensiveness,  of  which  the  Church  at  its  best  has 
always  shown  itself  capable,  was  the  real  achievement  of 
St.  Clement  of  Alexandria.  In  the  West,  at  any  rate, 
the  note  he  struck  vibrated  on  and  never  wholly  died  away. 
Even  in  the  Dark  Ages,  men  looked  on  Socrates  and  Ver- 
gil, on  Plato  and  Plotinus,  as  half-canonized  prophets  or 
seers  of  the  true  Light  of  the  world. 

It  may  very  well  be,  however,  that  depreciation  of 
Clement's  personal  mysticism  has  been  carried  too  far. 
Cultivated,  cheerful  and  serene,  he  was  certainly  no  mystic 
of  the  cloistered  or  ascetic  type,  nor,  one  would  suppose, 
had  his  soul  ever  been  scarred  by  some  devastating  expe- 
rience, whose  memory  would  afterwards  make  the  con- 
tours of  the  world  more  shifting,  and  its  hues  paler.  Never- 
theless, in  his  thought  of  God  he  shows  that  his  own  approach 
to  the  subject  was  that  which  became  common  to  a  vast 
school  of  Mysticism  in  later  days  ;  and  in  his  use  of  "  mys- 
tery "  language,  it  is  not  only  on  the  ideas  of  secrecy  and 
of  sacramentalism,  but  on  the  ideas  of  brotherhood  and 
of  right  conduct  required  of  the  initiates  that  he  lays  vital 
stress.  So  that  it  was  his  mysticism  that  helped  him  to 
his  comprehensiveness  of  thought.  Meditation  on  God 
reduces  the  discords  of  earth  to  a  great  stillness  and  is  in 
itself  a  feeling  through  confusion  to  the  Unity  that  waits 
behind.  Clement's  meditation  on  God  took  the  form  of 
"  analysis  ",  that  is,  like  Augustine,  he  can  but  say  what 
God  is  not,  rather  than  venture  to  define  what  He  is.  God 
is  indeed,  he  confesses.  Being,  rather  than  above  Being, 
but  he  pursues  refinement  on  refinement  so  far  that  at  last 
only  a  nameless  point  of  Being  is  left.     But  the  idea  even 


58    MONTANISTS,  GNOSTICS,  AND  ALEXANDRINES 

of  the  Monad  must  be  discarded,  for  God  is  above  or  be- 
yond it.  In  fact,  here  it  is  that  the  second  Person  of  the 
Trinity  is  necessary  to  man,  as  also  to  God,  For  the  Second 
Person  is  the  "  Idea  of  Ideas",  That  in  WTiich  God  comes 
to  the  knowledge  of  Himself,  to  self-consciousness,  and 
also  That  in  Which  God  sees  the  world ;  and,  needless 
to  say.  He  it  is  also  in  Whom  in  turn  we  see  God. 

Such  a  mode  of  thought  is  daring  and  would  be,  per- 
haps, dangerous,  or  at  least  barren,  if  Clement  stopped 
there.  But  he  does  not  stop  short  at  meditation.  The 
true  knowledge  of  God  is  no  mere  intellectual  speculation. 
It  mainly  consists  in  growing  like  God.  A  man  "  knowing 
God  will  be  made  like  God."  The  Divine  Idea,  or  Word, 
is  ever  being  bom  anew  in  the  hearts  of  saints.  It  is  com- 
munion with  God,  as  revealed  in  Christ,  which  again  and 
again  he  urges  on  his  readers  if  any  one  will  become  a  "  har- 
monized man  ".  So  Prayer  is  intercourse  with  God  ;  Faith 
a  "  divine  and  human  reciprocal  correspondence."  Again, 
"  He  who  would  enter  the  shrine  must  be  holy,  and  holi- 
ness is  to  think  holy  things  "  ;  and,  once  more,  "  In  pro- 
portion as  man  loves,  so  the  more  deeply  does  he  enter 
into  God." 

Origen,  Clement's  pupil,  who  died  in  253  after  a  bold 
confession  of  his  faith  in  the  Decian  persecution,  finished 
the  structure  and  placed  the  coping-stone  of  the  Alex- 
andrian school  of  theology.  Far  more  logical  and  system- 
atic than  his  master,  he  modified  [some  of  his  doctrines, 
and  pursued  others  to  an  extreme  which,  despite  the  vast 
services  which  he  rendered  to  the  thought  of  the  Church, 
earned  for  his  writings  partial  condemnation  and  whole- 
sale neglect  for  centuries.  Like  St.  Clement  he  says  that 
God  is  beyond  or  above  Being,  but  He  is  not  above  such 
distinctions  as  goodness  and  wisdom.  Again  he  modifies 
St.  Clement's  teaching  as  to  the  Son.  The  Son  is  still 
the  "  Idea  of  Ideas  ",  but  He  is  the  Activity  of  God,  That 


ORIGEN  59 

whereby  the  One  becomes  manifold,  rather  than  the  Self- 
consciousness  or  Reason  of  God.  God  can  be  approached 
by  the  human  reason  as  well  as  by  the  mystical  ecstasy. 
A  mysticism  drawn  from  the  thought  of  the  age  finds  its 
place  in  Origen's  conception  of  the  Incarnation.  We 
have  the  idea  of  the  mysteries  and  their  initiates  in  a  more 
sharply  defined  form.  Those  who  look  to  and  value  the 
Scripture  facts,  and  especially  the  Gospel  history,  as  the 
basis  of  their  faith  merely  have  according  to  him  "  soma- 
tic "  or  outward  Christianity.  Even  the  Cross  is  but 
teaching  lor  babes.  The  acts  of  Christ  are  alviy/xara, 
— "  riddles  " — symbols  that  shadow  forth  the  "  pneu- 
matic "  or  spiritual-  Gospel,  for  the  real  life,  death,  and 
resurrection  of  the  Christ  are  part  of  a  universal  law  enacted 
beyond  time,  in  the  counsels  of  eternity.  The  results  of 
this  undervaluation  of  the  historical  Incarnation,  as  of 
all  the  affairs  of  time,  are  often  seen  in  Origen's  system. 
As  regards  evil  he  inclines,  like  all  his  Greek  contempo- 
raries, to  the  belief  that  evil  is  unreal,  has  no  substance  ; 
only  the  good  exists.  This  leads  him  towards  a  confident 
Universalism,  and  he  contributes  the  doctrine  of  a  reme- 
dial purgatory,  to  bear  fruit  in  a  modified  form  among 
the  future  tenets  of  the  Church.  Much  of  Origen's  teach- 
ing, and  not  least  that  of  a  "  mystical  sense  "  underlying 
the  narratives  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  was  also 
pregnant  in  this  way.  But  we  may  trace  to  his  evacua- 
tion of  much  of  the  meaning  of  the  Incarnation  and  of  the 
Cross  for  a  world  to  which,  after  all,  sin  will  always  be  a 
momentous  tragedy,  that  undue  subordination  of  the 
place  and  office  of  the  Son  which  indirectly  encouraged 
the  advance  of  Arian  heresy.  On  the  other  hand,  to  Ori- 
gen,  more  than  to  any  other  theologian,  may  be  ascribed 
the  deliverance  of  the  Church  from  the  feverish  dreams  of 
Gnosticism.  Something  like  a  reasoned  Christology,  some- 
thing defined  and  intellectually  cogent  took  the  place  of 


6o    MONTANISTS,  GNOSTICS,  AND  ALEXANDRINES 

the  crude  and  bewildered  speculations  of  Valentinus  and 
Basilides. 

That  is  how  we  may  sum  up  the  merits  and  defects  of 
the  great  Christian  Platonist  school  of  Alexandria.  It 
made  the  Christian  Faith  a  Catholic  faith  in  a  sense  it  had 
never  been  before,  by  bringing  it  into  relationship  and 
harmony  with  the  best  and  deepest  thoughts  of  the  day  ; 
its  mystical  consciousness  and  expectation  of  direct  com- 
munion with  God  was  to  be  an  inspiration,  a  breath  of 
life  within  the  Church,  in  darker  ages  than  its  own.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  had  the  defects  of  a  "  school ".  Some- 
thing aloof  and  unhuman  spoiled  at  times  its  most  soaring 
thoughts  and  its  truest  intuitions.  It  looked  on  sin  with 
Greek  eyes,  and  so  left  the  Atonement  on  one  side  and 
could  find  no  great  meaning  in  the  Cross.  Christ  was  the 
Reason  of  God,  the  Idea  of  Ideas,  the  Principle  of  the  world, 
the  Divine  Consciousness,  the  Word  within  man,  but  never 
the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth,  the  Friend  of  sinners,  the  Man 
of  sorrows,  the  Saviour  of  the  lost. 


1 


CHAPTER    IV 

Neo-Platonism 

WE  are  now  approaching,  in  our  sketch  of  mystical 
thought,  the  strange  and  briUiant  phenomenon 
of  Neo-Platonism,  "  that  splendid  vision  of  incomparable 
cloudland ",  as  Harnack  calls  it,  "in  which  the  sun  of 
Greek  philosophy  set ".  ^  The  system  of  Plotinus  and 
Proclus,  however,  although  outside  the  pale  of  Christi- 
anity, perhaps  wilfully  outside,  cannot  be  passed  over  in 
any  study  of  Christian  thought.  The  sun  of  Greek  philo- 
sophy might  set,  but  it  set  in  Athens  to  rise  again  over 
Christendom.  Through  Victorinus,  who  clothed  sheer 
Neo-Platonism  in  Christian  phraseology,  and  through 
Augustine,  who  had  passed  not  unaffected  through  the 
stage  of  Neo-Platonic  thought ;  through  pseudo-Diony- 
sius  and  Erigena,  through  Eckhart  and  his  followers,  Neo- 
Platonism  found  in  the  Church  a  congenial,  and,  it  may 
be  added,  a  lasting  home.  For  the  coming  of  its  extra- 
ordinarily powerful  influence — an  influence  with  which 
in  Western  Christianity  nothing  can  compare  save  that, 
later,  of  what  we  may  call  the  "  Teutonic  Spirit  " — the 
Alexandrines  specifically  paved  the  approach.  They  did 
this  in  several  ways,  (i)  By  their  encouragement  of  the 
syncretic  spirit  within  the  Church  ;  and  Neo-Platonism 
was  s3nTipathetic  to  this  since  it  claimed  to  be  "  the  philo- 

^  Harnack  :    History  of  Dogma,  i,  p.  341. 


62  NEO-PLATONISM 

sophy  completing  all  systems ".  Alexandria,  where  all 
tides  of  opinion  met,  was  the  very  place  whence  the  be- 
lief could  spread  amongst  Christians  that  the  best  of  Pagan 
philosophies,  far  from  being  really  hostile  to  Christianity, 
formed  a  sort  of  "  pracparaiio  Evangelica".  (2)  By  their 
use  of  the  mystery  terms  ;  and,  again,  with  the  m\7stery 
cults  the  later  Neo-Platonists  were  in  close  alliance.  (3) 
By  the  distinction,  in  Clement's  case  already  drawn,  be- 
tween the  two  lives, — higher  and  lower — ,  which  might  be 
followed  by  the  Christian,  the  higher,  the  "  contempla- 
tive"  as  opposed  to  the  lower,  the  "practical".  In  this 
distinction  which  he  drew  too  systematically,  too  sharply, 
Clement  and  his  followers  were  really  in  protest  against 
what  made  for  formalism  and  materialism  in  the  Church. 
To  be  effective  the  protest  had  to  be  decisive  in  tone,  and 
an  unmistakable  emphasis  laid  on  the  possibility  of  a 
higher  life  of  thought  and  prayer.  But  the  foundation 
for  the  after  mystical  classification  was  laid.  (4)  Above 
all,  Clement  prepared  the  way  for  Plotinus'  doctrine  of 
the  Ecstasy  by  his  talk  of  the  "  Apathy  "  through  and 
by  which  the  fully  disciplined  and  filial  soul  holds  con- 
verse with  God.  God,  that  is,  is  to  be  loved  for  His  own 
sake,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  happiness  or  reward  to  be 
ibtained  from  Him.  The  Christian  "  attains  to  perfect 
Apathy,  because  no  thought  stirs  against  the  Saviour's 
mind.  He  does  God's  Will  because  he  cannot  help  doing 
it :  he  knows,  because  love  is  the  key  to  all  secrets.  He 
has  sacrificed  even  the  consciousness  of  sacrifice.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  Disinterested  Love  so  famous  in  later  mysti- 
cism. It  expresses  itself  in  the  *  mystic  paradox  '  that 
it  is  better  to  be  with  Christ  in  hell,  than  without  Him  in 
heaven.  The  true  mystic  demands  nothing  but  to  be 
allowed  to  love,  and  will  not  pray  the  Beloved  even  to 
cast  a  glance  or  a  thought  upon  him.  Like  all  mystics, 
Clement  speaks  of  '  silent  prayer ',  but  at  this  point  he 


PLOTINUS  63 

stopped  short."  ^     It  is  precisely  where  he  "  stopped  short " 
that  Plotinus,  and  the  long  line  of  Christian  mystics  who 
took  up  his  thought,  formulated  their  highest  conception 
of  the  communion  between  the  human  soul  and  the  Divine. 
Plotinus   "  the   one   analytical  mystic ",   as   M.   Maeter- 
linck calls  him,  was  born  in  305,  and,  although  his  disciple 
and  biographer   Porphyry   does  not  name  his  birthplace 
or  race,  he  appears  from  other  testimony  to  have  been  a 
Copt  of  Lycopolis  in  Egypt,     At  the  age  of  twenty-seven 
he  is  found  in  the  University  of  Alexandria,  studying  philo- 
sophy and  engaged  with  sincere  and  even  painful  eager- 
ness in  the  search  after  truth.     One  teacher  after  another 
failed  him,  until  at  last  one  day  he  chanced  to  stray  into 
the  classroom  of  Ammonius  Saccas — "the  porter",  as  his 
name  implies,   and  apparently  a  self-taugnt   philosopher, 
"  This  is  the  man  I  am  seeking  ",  cried  Plotinus,  as  he  lis- 
tened to  him.     Ammonius  had  been  a  Christian,  and  had 
turned  away  from  the   Faith,     Of  his   own  doctrine   we 
know  hardly  anything,  but  his  repudiation  -of  Christianity 
cannot  but  have  had  its  effect  on  the  mind  of  his  pupil. 
At  Alexandria,  and  at  the  feet  of  Ammonius,  he  remained 
for  eleven  years,  making  his  choice  of  faith  and  of  life. 
That  his  choice  was  a  high  one,  no  one,  from  that  day  to 
this,  has  doubted.     Amid  the  welter  of  beliefs  that  clashed 
and  strove  for  mastery  in  the  lecture  halls  and  streets  of 
Alexandria,    Plotinus   listened   and    mused   and  gradually 
wrought   out   his   idealized    Platonism,    intellectually   and 
morally  the  most  perfect  system  of  belief,  outside  Christi- 
anity, that  the  world  iias  known.     On  the  death  of  Am- 
monius, cibout  242,  he  joined  Gordian's  expedition  against 
Persia,  so  as  to  complete  his  round  of  mental  experience 
by  a  knowledge  of  Persian  and  Hindoo  beliefs.     Perhaps 
this  step  may  be  taken  as  an  early  indication  of  the  attrac- 
tion which  the  later  Neo-Platonists,  such  as  Porphyry  and 
^  Dr.  Bigg  :    Neo-Platonism,  pp.   175-6. 


64  NEO-PLATONISM 

lamblichus,  felt  from  Eastern  modes  of  religious  thought. 
In  Plotinus'  case,  however,  the  influence  of  the  East  was 
destined  to  be  very  scanty  and  short  lived.  The  Emperor 
Gordian  was  assassinated  at  the  outset  of  the  campaign, 
and  Plotinus  returned,  not  now  to  Alexandria,  but,  partly 
in  the  capacity  of  a  missionary,  to  Rome,  where  he  spent 
the  rest  of  his  life.  Before  we  trace  those  features  of  his 
teaching  which  concern  our  subject,  we  may  ask  here  a 
question  which  has  often  excited  curiosity  :  Why  was  not 
Plotinus  a  Christian  ?  Nothing  in  his  pure  and  holy  life, 
through  which  there  ran  the  charm  of  his  modesty,  his 
love  for  children,  his  power  in  turbulent  Rome  as  a  peace- 
maker, his  contempt  for  wealth,  his  simplicity  of  manners, 
militated  against  his  acceptance  of  the  Faith.  His  philo- 
sophy, too,  might  seem  to  lend  itself,  by  a  ready  adapta- 
tion, to  Christian  dogma.  For,  according  to  Plotinus, 
God  is  a  Trinity  in  Unity.  He  is  the  One,  the  Good,  the 
Absolute,  Who  is  above  all  existence  and  definition  ;  again, 
He  is  JV0D9,  Intelligence,  Mind,  God  in  thought,  the  "  One- 
Many",  in  Plotinian  phrase;  and  yet  again.  He  is  Soul, 
the  "  One-and-Many ",  God  in  action,  God  as  manifest  in 
the  realm  of  appearance  and  time-succession.  ^  Again, 
evil  is  disintegration,  that  which  is  without  the  "  Logos  ", 
the  vital  and  binding  force  of  law,  and  is  so  unreal  as  to 
be  unable  to  appear  without  conjunction  with  some  very 
low  form  of  goodness.^  Here,  again,  he  comes  very  close 
to  much  Christian  mystical  phraseology  as  to  evil,  its 
nature,  or  rather,  its  non-nature,  the  "  null  and  void  ". 
Again,  with  such  doctrines  of  Plotinus  as  that  the  universe 
is  a  vast  organism  so  vitally  connected  in  all  its  parts  that 
"  if  one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it ", 

1  Cf.     Bigg  :      Neo-Platonism,     pp.     219-22.      Inge  :       Christian 
Mysticism,  p.  95. 

2  Cf.  Enneads  i,  8.  13.     "  Evil  is  still  human,  lia\'ing  been  mixed 
with  something  opposite  to  itself." 


PLOTINUS  AND   CHRISTIANITY  65 

Christianity  is  in  fullest  concord  :  as  with  much  of  his 
teaching  about  the  virtues,  when  for  instance  he  says  that 
what  we  know  as  the  four  cardinal  virtues,  the  duties  of 
the  citizen,  !^long  really  to  the  process  of  mystical  ascent 
(though  he  assigns  them  to  the  lowest  stage)  ;  that  they 
are  purgative  and  that  they  teach  us  the  Divine  charac- 
teristics of  "  measure  and  rule  ".  Now,  as  Dr.  Bigg  has 
said,  "  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  speculations  aided 
greatly  in  the  clear  formulation  of  Christian  truth,"  and, 
with  regard  to  the  Plotinian  Trinity,  "  they  made  it  pos- 
sible to  understand  how  the  Three  Divine  Persons  of  the 
Baptismal  Formula  should  yet  be  One  in  Godhead  ".  But 
why,  then,  did  not  Plotinus  accept  Christianity  ?  He 
must  have  come  across  it,  examined  it,  and  deliberately 
put  it  on  one  side.  Various  answers  have  been  suggested 
to  the  question,  and  two  of  these  will  indicate  to  us  so  well 
what  his  own  mystical  standpoint  was,  and  what  was  his 
final,  though  indirect,  contribution  to  Christian  mysticism, 
that  we  shall  do  wisely  to  pass  them  in  review.  We  may 
surely  dismiss  Dr.  Bigg's  not  very  happy  suggestion  that, 
since  the  strength  of  the  Church  lay  in  its  possession  of  a 
revelation,  "  one,  and  probably  not  the  least,  among  the 
motives  of  Plotinus  was  the  desire  to  outbid  it ".  ^  This 
does  violence  to  our  knowledge  of  Plotinus'  gentle  and 
exalted  character.  Besides,  he  was  never,  like  Porphyry, 
a  professed  opponent  to  Christianity  :  he  simply  ignored  it. 
It  has  been  surmised  that  Plotinus  only  knew  of  Christi- 
anity under  some  of  the  repellent  Gnostic  forms  that  affected 
it  in  Alexandria.  That  might  very  possibly  be  true  of 
the  Alexandrian  stage  of  his  hfe,  when,  too,  he  was  under 
the  domination  of  Ammonius  Saccas  ;  but  later  he  also 
knew  Christianity  during  the  Decian  persecution  and  in 
times  of  tranquilHty  as  a  religio  licita  under  Gallienus. 
There  is  something  far  more  plausible  in  the  idea  that  the 

^  Bigg  :    Neo-Platonism,  p.  291. 
M.O.  F 


66  NEO-PLATONISM 

'^synthetic  aspirations  dear  to  the  later  Platonists  and  rife 
in  Alexandria,  which  bred  in  Plotinus  the  missionary  zeal 
to  found  a  philosophy  that  should  sum  up  and  reconcile 
all  other  systems,  felt  themselves  in  immediate  and  lasting 
revolt  to  the  exclusive  claims  of  the  Christian  Faith.  But 
in  truth  there  was  in  Plotinus'  system  of  thought — a  sys- 
tem remarkable  as  being  not  speculative  merely,  but,  the 
nearer  he  gets  in  his  thoughts  to  God,  instinct  with  expe- 
rience— something  directly  alien  from  the  central  idea  of 
Christianity.  That  central  idea  is  the  Incarnation  ;  and 
it  was  on  the  conception  of  God  coming  down  to  man,  in 
love  to  man,  that  Cclsus  had  rained  his  scorn,  Plotinus 
rains  no  scorn ;  but  none  the  less  the  Incarnation,  with 
all  that  it  implies,  was  out  of  the  range  of  his  thought. 
He  was  on  fire  wdth  love  for  the  One,  the  Absolute,  it  is 
true,  and  with  desire  for  that  knowledge  of  the  Divine 
which  to  him,  as  to  all  the  Platonists,  was  eternal  life. 
But,  like  Spinoza,  ages  afterwards,  he  would  have  said, 
"  He  that  loves  God  must  not  expect  to  be  loved  by  Him 
in  return ".  "  According  to  Plotinus,  God  is  Goodness 
without  love.  Man  may  love  God,  but  God  cannot  love 
man.  Religion  is  the  desire  for  the  star.  Man  can  reach 
the  star  and  cannot  be  happy  unless  he  does  ;  but  the  star 
does  not  know  anything  about  him  and  does  not  care  whether 
the  reaches  it  or  not".  ^  This  inward  disinterested  drawing 
owards  the  Good,  the  One,  was  a  true  mystical  trait.  But 
that  for  which  Plotinus  is  beyond  all  else  important  in 
the  evolution  of  mystical  thought  was  his  doctrine  of  the 
Ecstasy.  Plotinus'  psychology  was  his  strongest  point : 
it  is  because  we  can  discover,  as  Dr.  Bigg  says,  in  the  hu- 
man mind  the  shadow  or  reflection  of  the  Plotinian  Trinity,^ 
that  his  work  in  defining  that  Trinity  has  lasted.  It  is 
experiential,  in  fact,  not  merely  speculative.     Hence  what 

*  Bigg  :    Neo-Platonism,  p.  248.  ^  ^^    p    222. 


PLOTINUS'   DOCTRIN'E  OF  GOD  67 

he  has  to  say  about  the  highest  stage  of  his  own  psycho- 
logical experience  must  be  received  with  respect,  not  only 
because  he  himself  laid  emphatic  stress  upon  it,  but  be- 
cause the  experience  he  described  passed  over  into  the 
Church  as  the  goal  of  the  contemplative  Hfe. 

It  must  be  remembered  again  that  Plotinus,  as  a  Pla- 
tonist,  put  the  knowledge  of  God,  the  Beloved,  as  the  con- 
dition of  life.  Now  at  each  end  of  his  category  there  is  a 
stage  which  can  but  be  described  as  Formlessness.  Just 
as  evil  is  disintegration,  the  somewhat  beneath  Being, 
so  the  One,  the  Good,  is  above  and  beyond  Being.  Yet 
it  is  necessary  to  the  highest  attainment  of  the  soul  that 
there  should  somehow,  impossible  as  it  seems,  be  corre- 
spondence or  contact  between  this  Ineffable  One  and  the 
soul.  For  "  if  the  One  is  a  mere  hypothesis,  everything 
becomes  uncertain.  He  must  be  in  some  sense  knowable, 
and  He  could  be  known  only  by  being  seen  or  felt  ".  In 
one  sense  every  good  man,  craving  for  ascent  to  God,  at- 
tains to  communion  with  Him.  For  "  Intelligence  (IV0O9) 
is  our  King  ",  says  Plotinus,  "  and  we  are  kings  when  we 
are  like  Him.  Life  is  never  weary  when  it  is  pure  ".  This 
is  to  know  God  as  Another,  as  something  that  we  possess  ; 
it  is  communion  wdth  the  Second  Person  of  the  Triad,  the 
Nov<i  or  InteUigence.  And  this  JVoO?  corresponds  exactly 
to  Eckhart's  "  God  ",  as  distinct  from  the  Godhead. 

Is  there  a  higher  stage  ?  Plotinus  thought  there  is. 
"  We  must  go  up  further  to  the  Good,  for  which  every 
soul  craves.  .  .  .  Let  us  fly  to  our  dear  fatherland  !  "  ^ 
"  Using  the  pure  Intelligence  "  we  must  look,  as  it  were, 
from  that  standpoint,  and  see  God,  as  the  Second  Person 
of  the  Trinity  beholds  the  First.  Plotinus  illustrates  the 
difference  between  the  two  sorts  of  vision  by  the  act  of 
sight.  We  see  a  form  ;  we  also  see  the  light  that  makes 
it  visible ;  and  the  very  sight  of  the  form  makes  us  con- 

1  Enn.  i.  6. 


68  NEO-PLATONISM 

scious  of  the  light  by  which  we  see  it.  Intelligence  must 
turn  away  from  the  form  and  concentrate  itself  upon  the 
light.  Or  the  vision  can  be  described  in  terms  of  sensa- 
tion, such  as  the  pervading  yet  unanalysable  feehng  of 
good-health.  The  soul  may  make  preparation  for  the 
vision  by  moral  purity,  knowledge,  the  pursuit  of  beauty, 
but  must  in  no  way  try  to  force  the  experience.  Inde- 
scribable when  it  comes,  incommunicable  to  others,  the 
Ecstasy  may  not  be  induced  by  conscious  emotional  effort, 
or  wrought-up  feeling,  or  thought,  or  prayer.  Here  St. 
Clement's  doctrine  of  Apathy  comes  in  ;  and  it  is  impor- 
tant to  note  that  with  Plotinus  the  experience  was  never 
self-induced,  still  less  attained  by  mechanical  means  such  as 
self-hypnosis  or  fasting,  or  such  dubious  methods  as  Pro- 
fessor James  has  instanced  in  his  "  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience ".  So  far  from  this  being  the  case,  it  came 
at  its  own  ^vill  entirely,  and  all  the  subject  could  do  was 
to  be  in  a  normal  state  of  preparedness.^  It  was,  in  fact, 
a  special  grace,  and  was  given  by,  not  obtained  from.  Him 
Who  is  self-manifested.  "  We  cannot  force  God ;  we 
must  be  quiet ".  In  a  characteristic  passage "  Plotinus 
tries  to  describe  the  ineffable.  "He  is  within,  yet  not 
within.  We  must  not  ask  whence  He  comes  ;  there  is 
no  whence.  For  He  never  comes,  and  He  never  goes  ; 
but  appears,  and  does  not  appear.  Wherefore  we  must 
not  pursue  Him,  but  wait  quietly  tiU  He  show  Himself, 
only  we  must  make  ourselves  ready  to  behold,  as  the  eye 
awaits  the  dayspring.     And  He  swims  above  the  horizon 


^  In  fact,  the  stillness  or  "  apathy  "  of  soul  which  Plotinus  predi- 
cates does  not  mean  idleness  or  vacuity,  a  sitting,  as  it  has  been 
put,  "with  eyes  shut  and  hands  folded".  That  in  itself  would  be 
a  kind  of  pressing  of  God.  Rather,  it  is  a  luminous  awaredness, 
and  habitual  meditation,  together  with  a  complete  resignation  of 
the  self  into^the  Hands  of  God. 

2  Enn.  i.  5,  8. 


PLOTINUS  AND  THE  ECSTASY  69 

.  .  .  and  gives  Himself  to  our  gaze".  Elsewhere  there 
is  a  lovely  passage  Hkening  the  soul  to  one  who  had  entered 
a  palace  rich  and  beautiful,  who  would  gaze  with  wonder 
on  all  its  varied  treasures  till  he  had  caught  sight  of  the 
Master  of  the  House.  But  when  he  beholds  Him  Who  is 
far  more  lovely  than  any  of  his  statues  and  worthy  of  the 
true  contemplation,  he  forgets  the  treasures  and  marks 
their  Lord  alone.  He  looks  and  cannot  remove  his  eyes, 
till  by  persistence  of  gaze  he  no  longer  sees  an  object,  but 
blends  his  sight  with  that  which  is  seen,  so  that  what  was 
object  becomes  sight.  Or  again,  the  One  suddenly  ap- 
pears "  wdth  nothing  between  ",  "  and  they  (the  soul  and 
the  One)  are  no  more  two  but  one  .  .  .  and  the  soul  knows 
that  she  would  not  exchange  her  bliss  for  all  the  heaven 
of  heavens  ".  ^ 

Plotinus  beheved  himself  to  have  experienced  the  vision 
of  the  One,  or  the  Ecstasy,  several  times  ;  Porphyry  enu- 
merates three  occasions,  and  tells  us  that  he  himself  had 
known  it  once.  It  came,  we  gather,  suddenly ;  it  was 
accompanied  by  a  suspension,  more  or  less  complete,  of 
external  consciousness ;  it  conveyed  no  sense  of  fear,  but 
rather  of  unutterable  joy;  it  was  no  dream,  hallucination, 
or  "  vision  "  in  the  lower  sense,  inasmuch  as  nothing  of 
definite  form  or  scene  was  presented ;  it  was  therefore 
indescribable,  but  it  left  a  sense  of  certitude  and  the  height- 
ening of  the  spiritual  faculties.  In  this  contact  {eTa^tj) 
with  the  Divine  the  perfect  soul  conceives,  "  when  filled 
with  God",  beautiful  thoughts  and  graces. 

What  are  we  to  think  of  Plotinus'  ecstasy  ?  A  great 
deal  depends  on  the  answer,  because  Plotinus  regarded 
his  ecstasy  as  a  true  revelation  of  the  Divine,  and  was,  in 
fact,  the  first  thinker  to  bring  the  idea  of  a  revelation  into 
Greek  philosophy.  We  may  begin  by  sajnng,  tentatively, 
with  Dr.  Bigg,  that  "  Revelation  is  the  revelation  of  a 
^  Enn.  vi.  35,  34. 


70  NEO-PLATONISM 

Presence,  of  a  Personality  ;  and  without  denying  the  pos- 
sibihty  of  revelation  altogether,  we  can  hardly  say  that 
the  vision  of  Plotinus  is  inconceivable  ".  ^  But  the  ques- 
tion, which,  if  it  merely  concerned  Plotinus,  would  have 
for  us  but  a  passing  interest,  becomes  of  immense  import- 
ance when  we  note  that  in  all  its  essential  characteristics 
Plotinus'  experience  was  identical  with  that  of  the  great 
Christian  mystics  of  after  time,  and  indeed  came,  through 
his  Christian  interpreters,  to  exercise  a  momentous  influ- 
ence on  Christian  mystical  theology.  Thus,  from  all  the 
natural  or  abnormal  conditions  wliich  may  give  rise  to 
seemingly  mystical  experiences — disease,  hysteria,  nerve 
excitement,  memory-associations,  of  which  Professor  James 
makes  mention  and  most  of  which,  it  may  be  added.  Pope 
Benedict  XIV  in  his  De  Canonisatione  enumerated  before 
him, — Plotinus'  trance-experience  was  absolutely  free.  Fr. 
Sharpe,  in  his  recent  and  striking  treatise  on  the  nature  of 
Mysticism,  notes  candidly  the  resemblances  between  the 
ecstasy  of  Plotinus  and  those  experiences  of  the  great  con- 
templatives  on  wliich  the  Church  has  set  the  seal  of  verity. 
"  We  find  ",  he  says,  "  in  Plotinus  the  most  advanced  con- 
ceptions of  the  great  Christian  mystics.  There  is  no  vision 
or  locution  ;  aU  is  abstract  or  purely  spiritual.  But  Plo- 
tinus tells  us  almost  in  identical  phraseology  of  the  Man- 
sions of  St.  Theresa,  of  the  prayer  of  quiet,^  of  St.  John's 
dark  night  of  faith,  and  of  the  spiritual  marriage;  the 
"  ground  "  [Kevrpov]  of  the  soul  is  with  him  as  familiar 
and  as  necessary  an  idea  as  it  is  with  the  German  mystics. 
Quotations  might  be  multipHed  and  coincidences  noted 
to   almost    any   extent."  ^    He   comes   to   the   conclusion 

^  Bigg  :    Neo-Platonism,  p.  288. 

^  Cf.  St.  Teresa.  "  Our  Lord  does  not  require  the  faculties  or 
senses  to  open  the  door  of  the  heart  to  Him  :  they  are  all  asleep. 
We  can  do  nothing  on  our  part ". 

'  Sharpe:    Mysticism,  Its  True  Nature  and  Value,  p.  151. 


LATER   NEO-PLATONISTS  71 

that  "  we  must  accept  the  experience  of  Plotinus  as  one 
of  those  manifestations  of  divine  grace  outside  its  regular 
channels,  the  occurrence  of  which  from  time  to  time,  has 
been  quite  unmistakable,"  and  he  bids  us  therefore  con- 
sider Plotinus, /' magnus  ille  Platonicus  ",  as  St.  Augustine 
called  him,  "  an  involuntary  witness  to  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  view  of  mysticism,  and  the  reality  of  the  experi- 
ence of  Christian  mystics".  ^ 

Plotinus  died  in  269  with  the  characteristic  farewell  on 
his  hps,  "  Now  the  divine  in  me  is  struggling  to  reunite 
with  the  Divine  in  the  All".  During  the  next  150  years, 
the  school  of  philosophy  of  which  he  had  been  the  chief 
light  suffered  a  long  process  of  degradation  from  within, 
and,  as  time  went  by,  of  discredit  and  even  oppression  with- 
out. Plotinus'  message  had  never  been  a  gospel  for  the 
simple  and  the  poor  in  spirit ;  it  was  at  once  its  boast  and 
its  weakness  that  it  appealed  only  to  the  wise,  the  learned, 
and  the  lofty-minded.  It  offered,  not  cleansing  as  its  way 
of  salvation,  but  knowledge.  Under  Porphyry,  and  still 
more  under  lamblichus,  who  died  in  330,  Neo-Platonism 
suffered  from  the  inrush  of  all  kinds  of  Oriental  superstitions, 
the  practice  of  magic,  the  use  of  divination  by  numbers, 
and  a  good  deal  of  dabbhng  in  what  the  present  day  would 
call  spiritualism.  In  Porphyry's  writings  beautiful  mystical 
sayings  are  to  be  found,  such  as  "  True  religion  is  to  know 
God  and  to  imitate  Him  ",  "  God  looks  not  on  the  hps, 
but  on  the  hfe  ",  "  The  true  temple  is  the  soul  of  the  wise  ", 


^  Sharpe,  op.  cit.  p.  157.  This  writer  has  an  interesting  theory 
of  the  mystical  experience.  He  thinks  it  a  real  sense-contact  (cf. 
Plotinus'  era^T^),  an  immediate  intuition  of  and  communication 
with  the  divine  Being.  This  happens  in  the  "  transmarginal " 
sphere,  and  "  the  way,  whatever  it  may  be,  in  which  we  become 
conscious  of  ideas  derived  from  unnoticed  sense-impressions  may 
be  identical  with  that  in  which  the  mystic  becomes  conscious  of 
the  immediate  divine  presence",  p.  116,  et  seq. 


72  NEO-PLATONISM 

and  (though  this  itself  is  an  older  quotation)  "  He  that 
wills  to  enter  the  fragrant  shrine  must  be  holy,  and  holi- 
ness is  to  think  holy  thoughts  ",  but  along  with  such  teach- 
ing goes  a  belief  in  magic,  in  spells,  in  the  baleful  power 
of  demons,  against  whose  maleficence  even  divine  philo- 
sophy offered  no  reliable  safeguard.  Well  might  Augus- 
tine say,  "  Thou  didst  learn  these  things  not  from  Plato 
but  from  thy  Chaldaean  teachers  ". 

Over  lamblichus,  with  whom  arose  what  was  definitely 
known  as  the  Syrian  school  of  Neo-Platonism,  and  his 
•successors,  ]\laximus  and  Chrysanthius,  it  is  unnecessary 
to  linger.  Maximus  is  famous  as  the  man  who  brought 
about  the  Emperor  JuUan's  apostasy,  but  it  was  the  Im- 
perial disciple  who  lent  to  his  circle  what  nobility  it  had. 
The  world,  to  these  men,  was  a  troubled  dream,  which  at 
any  moment  might  become  a  nightmare,  of  apparitions 
and  portents.  Magic,  white,  and  also  black,  was  the  sort 
of  gnosis  in  which  they  chiefly  dealt,  prayer  became  a  mere 
succession  of  formulas,  often  a  jargon  of  syllables  with 
no  meaning  at  all.  God  Himself  was  mainly  manifested 
as  Miracle,  acting  in  response  to  such  invocations.  The 
soul,  which,  in  opposition  to  the  teaching  of  Plotinus,  was 
out  of  all  touch  with  the  Divine  Intelligence,  dwelt  on 
earth  amongst  many  foes,  and  was  shadowed  over  by  a 
bewilderment  of  world-powers.  For  lambhchus  had  split 
up  the  Intelligence  or  Nov<;  into  a  triad,  Thinking,  Thought 
and  the  Thinker,  each  of  these  begetting  another  triad 
with  a  hebdomad  alongside  it,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 
Then,  as  a  last  gesture  of  defiance  against  victorious  Chris- 
tianity, he  had  reconstituted  the  twelve  old  Gods  of  Ol3an- 
pus,  and  equipped  them  with  a  vast  family  or  court  of 
ever-descending  orders  and  world-rulers.  It  was  in  the 
midst  of  this  confusion  that,  on  every  hand,  signs  of  the 
fall  of  heathenism  flared  out  hke  the  wTiting  on  the  doomed 
waU  of  Babylon.     In  368,  the  old  creed  had  been  so  far 


PROCLUS  73 

driven  from  the  civilized  and  cultured  towns  into  the  rude 
"  pagi "  or  rural  districts  that  the  word  "  Paganism  " 
appeared  for  the  first  time  to  describe  it  in  a  law  of  Val- 
entinian.  Then  came  the  reign  of  Theodosius,  and  the 
traditional  dying  words  of  JuHan,  five  and  twenty  years 
before,  "  Vicisti,  0  Galilaee  !  "  were  reahzed  in  fact.  In 
391,  the  Serapeum  at  Alexandria  was  destroyed,  and  the 
schools  of  Hellenism  there  were  occupied  by  communi- 
ties of  Christian  monks ;  and  in  394,  the  Senate  of  Rome 
was  formally  converted  to  the  Faith. 

Yet  Athens  still  remained  consistent  in  fidehty  to  a 
philosophy  that  seemed  on  the  point  of  dissolution.  Plu- 
tarch was  still  teaching  there,  and  one  night,  two  years 
before  his  death,  a  stranger  arrived  at  the  gates,  just  as 
the  porter  was  closing  them.  The  porter's  words,  "  I 
should  have  shut  up  the  place,  had  not  you  arrived  ",  were 
afterwards  looked  upon  as  prophetic.  For  the  stranger 
was  Proclus,  who  with  some  judges  is  still  ranked  as  among 
the  first  of  ancient  thinkers,  who  certainly  delayed  the 
final  fall  of  Hellenism  and  of  Polytheism  in  its  ancient 
haunts  for  a  century  by  the  force  of  his  genius,  and  who, 
like  Plotinus,  was  destined  to  exert  no  little  influence  on 
Christian  thought. 

Proclus  was  born  about  410,  and  it  was  at  the  age  of 
nineteen  that  he  journeyed  to  Athens,  where,  with  the 
exception  of  one  enforced  flight,  perhaps  on  account  of 
his  opinions,  he  lived  a  blameless  life,  and  where  he  died 
in  485.  The  relation  which  he  bears  to  Plotinus  in  some 
way  resembles  the  relation  which  Medieval  Scholasticism 
bore  to  Mysticism.  There  was  much  more  of  the  scholas- 
tic than  of  the  mystic  about  Proclus.  The  distinction 
is  probably  correct  that  the  true  province  of  Mysticism 
is  psychological  and  experimental,  but  that  anything  like 
dogma  must  be  left  to  the  magisterium  of  the  Church, 
or  if  the  phrase  be  preferred,  to  the  common  Christian 


74  NEO-PLATONISM 

consciousness.  So  the  after  scholastics  did  not  reject 
the  mystical  experience  and  discipline,  but  sought  to  cor- 
relate them  with  the  whole  summa  of  Church  doctrine, 
to  find  them  their  place,  in  fact.  In  his  lesser  way,  this 
is  what  Proclus  sought  to  do  with  the  Plotinian  and  lam- 
blichan  systems  that  had  preceded  him.  The  result — 
his  "  Rudiments  of  Theology " — was  in  many  ways  a 
great  piece  of  work,  for  its  author  was  a  great  metaphy- 
sician :  but  it  suffered  from  two  defects,  (i)  Proclus 
had  no  touch  of  intimate  personal  communion  with  the 
Divine  to  lighten  up  and  vitaUze  his  severe  deductive 
processes.  This  absence  of  personal  experience  leads 
him  to  put  up,  high  out  of  reach,  the  Plotinian  Trinity, 
which  had  had  the  justification  of  possessing  a  true  reflec- 
tion in  the  human  soul.  With  Proclus,  the  Good,  the 
IntelHgence,  and  the  Soul  are  not  of  course  denied,  but 
"  cease  to  be  fountains  of  hfe,  or  causes,  at  all  ".  They 
are  indeed,  incommunicable,  and  any  knowledge  of  God 
on  the  part  of  man  is  abandoned.  Neither  by  opinion, 
nor  by  science,  nor  by  reason,  nor  by  intuition  is  God  known. 
Such  knowledge  as  the  soul  has  of  the  Divine  only  comes 
"  necessarily "  or  automatically.  How  this  is  accom- 
pHshed  is  through  every  soul  belonging  to  one  particular 
chain  of  hfe,  dependent  on  some  under-cause  or  God.  For 
Proclus  was  burdened  by  the  system  of  lambhchus  and 
his  successors,  and,  while  rendering  hp-service  to  Plotinus, 
forsook  his  idea  of  one  great  chain  of  Life  reaching  through 
all  that  is,  and  substituted  for  it  the  cumbrous  and  intri- 
cate system  of  triads.  His  principle  of  the  division  of 
everything  into  threes  had,  and  has,  justification.  It  is 
the  "  Law  of  the  Ternary ",  as  Vacherot  has  named  it, 
and  it  was  making  itself  felt  in  the  theology  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church.  But  in  this  respect  it  was  Plotinus,  and  not 
Proclus,  who  was  the  helpful  outside  force,  Proclus  made 
it  the  excuse  for  an  infinite  series  of  chains  of  existence, 


PROCLUS  AND   PAGANISM  75 

each  of  which  sprang  from  a  "  Henad  ",  having  the  char- 
acter of  absolute  being,  and  derived  in  some  inexpHcable 
fashion  from  the  "  incommunicable "  hypostases  of  the 
Neo-Platonic  Trinity ;  and  each  in  turn  subdividing  and 
ramif^dng  endlessly  as  it  ran  down.  Now,  it  was,  he  taught, 
by  belonging  to  some  one  of  these  chains  of  existence  that 
man  necessarily  and  by  affinity  of  nature  knows  God. 
Between  him,  therefore,  and  the  Good,  the  One,  there  was 
interposed  a  multitude  of  mediated  forms  of  being.  Pro- 
clus  differed  also  from  Plotinus  in  crossing  that  Rubicon 
which  simply  speculative,  as  apart  from  experimental, 
mysticism  ever  longs  to  cross.  The  existence  of  evil  is 
always  a  worry  to  the  mind  that  wants  an  exactly  formu- 
lated system  ;  it  comes  in  the  way,  and  spoils  the  sym- 
metry of  the  system.  Plotinus,  it  will  be  remembered, 
recognized  evil  as  disintegration,  formlessness.  Proclus 
denied  any  existence  to  such  disintegration,  and  left  in 
his  system  no  place  for  evil,  even  in  that  modified  form. 
Matter  has  no  independent  existence.  (2)  Proclus  was 
hampered  by  being  the  champion,  and  one  of  the  very 
last  champions,  of  the  falling  cause  of  Paganism.  This 
he  took  under  his  wing,  finding  places  for  the  gods  much 
as  lamblichus  had  done.  Plotinus  had  merely  tolerated 
a  belief  in  them  as  necessary  to  the  vulgar  and  ill-instructed  : 
but  Proclus  was  a  Pagan  religionist,  as  well  as  a  philoso- 
pher, and,  instead  of  smuggling  away  the  ancient  deities 
in  this  fashion,  re-enthroned  them  with  full  purpose.  The 
result  is  seen  in  a  comparison  of  the  lives  of  the  two  men. 
Proclus  Uved  out  his  days  morally  and  sincerely,  but  there 
is  wholly  lacking  in  his  life  that  clear  and  gracious  charm, 
the  "  inner  light  "  which  had  something  veritably  Divine 
in  its  radiance,  and  enabled  Plotinus  to  cast  an  enduring 
spell  on  human  thought.  With  Proclus  we  are  back  amongst 
a  crowd  of  discarded  and  repellent  superstitions. 
But  why  has  it  been  necessary  to  sketch,  however  roughly. 


76  NEO-PLATONISM 

the  teaching  of  these  two  philosophers  who  were  outside 
the  pale  of  the  Catholic  Church  ?  Because  their  teaching 
produced  effects  which  are  directly  traceable  within  it, 
and  which  for  good,  and  also  for  ill,  left  deep  marks  on 
the  history  of  Mysticism,  in  the  East  for  a  time,  and  then 
decisively  and  ineffaceably  in  the  West.  What  was  cer- 
tainly good,  and  strengthening  to  Christian  thought  at 
an  era  when  the  thoughts  of  the  Church  needed  such  rein- 
forcement, found  its  way  thither  through  the  converted 
Neo-Platonist  philosopher  Victorinus,  and  his  great  pupil, 
St.  Augustine  ;  and  this  we  owe  to  Plotinus.  To  Pro- 
clianism  with  its  minimizing  of  evil  and  its  immense  series 
of  hierarchies  in  the  spiritual  world,  we  can  ascribe  a  good 
deal  of  the  more  doubtful  doctrines  of  the  mysterious 
Hierotheus,  and  of  his  disciple,  destined  to  exercise  so 
enormous  an  influence  in  the  Western  world,  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite. 


CHAPTER    V 

The  Influence  of  Neo-Platonism  in 
Christianity 

OF  the  "  profound  and  many-sided "  influence  of 
Neo-Platonism  on  Christianity  there  can  be  no 
doubt  whatever.  The  system  of  Plotinus,  with  its  intel- 
lectual Trinity,  that  perfect  flower  and  simi  of  Greek  philo- 
sophic thought,  could  not  but  assist  strongly,  if  indirectly, 
the  formation  of  Christian  dogmas  concerning  the  Being 
of  God,  while  as  yet  Christian  formal  theology  was 
inchoate,  and  Christianity  itself  was  not  "  walking  in  silver 
sHppers ",  Besides,  it  is  always  uncertain  how  much, 
in  the  first  instance,  Christianity  gave,  by  unrecognized 
processes,  to  the  teaching  of  Ammonius  Saccas  and  per- 
haps, for  all  his  unconcern,  to  Plotinus  himself.  Certainly 
another  Neo-Platonist  leader,  Amelius,  availed  himself 
of  the  prologue  to  St.  John's  Gospel ;  while  yet  another, 
Numenius,  appears  to  have  been  acquainted  with  the  Gos- 
pels in  general,  and  with  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  Christianity 
may,  after  all,  have  been  but  receiving  back  its  own  with 
usury.  But  with  this  doctrinal  side  of  Neo-Platonist  in- 
fluence we  are  less  concerned.  It  was,  chiefly,  through 
its  psychological  and  mystical  teaching  that  Neo-Platonism 
was  destined  to  survive,  and  this  because  the  two  went 
together.  Despite  all  accretions  and  exaggerations,  the 
Neo-Platonists'  knowledge  of  God  was  experimental,  not 

77 


78  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

merely  speculative,  and  as  all  "  that  is  life  indeed  "  was 
destined,  sooner  or  later,  to  find  a  home  in  the  Christian 
Church,  the  true  spirit  of  Neo-Platonism,  although  its 
last  professors  were  expelled  from  Athens  and  the  doors 
closed  upon  them  by  Justinian's  orders,  found  its  refuge 
there  also.  Maybe  the  formal  ruin  of  Neo-Platonism 
would  have  been  at  least  delayed  had  not  its  later  doctors 
quitted  experience  for  speculation,  and  become  arid  scho- 
lastics— scholastics  too,  in  part,  of  a  dead  creed. 

The  first  link  in  the  chain  which  directly  connects  Neo- 
Platonism  and  Christianity  was  the  work  of  Victorinus. 
Victorinus  was  a  Neo-Platonist  philosopher  and  tutor  in 
Rome,  so  much  revered  that  he  received  the  honour  of  a 
statue  in  the  Roman  Forum.  He  translated  the  "  En- 
neads  "  of  Plotinus  into  Latin,  and  this  turned  out  to  be 
a  hterary  achievement  of  the  highest  moment,  inasmuch 
as  his  translation  fell  under  the  eyes  of  Augustine,  and 
was  the  means  of  the  latter's  dehverance  from  Manicheeism, 
from  that  pessimistic  teaching  wliich  averred  that  evil 
is  a  power  equal  and  in  eternal  opposition  to  God,  and 
that  matter,  man's  body  and  half  man's  soul,  is  under 
its  unescapable  domination.  Neo-Platonism  taught  the 
exact  opposite  of  this,  in  its  studied,  and  at  times  anxious, 
evacuation  of  any  principle  of  existence  from  evil,  so  as 
to  render  it  mere  privation,  defect  of  good.  The  swing 
of  the  pendulum  might  range  too  far,  yet  to  Augustine 
the  perusal  of  the  "  Enneads  "  was  a  real  deliverance 
from  bondage,  an  upward  step  into  a  world  from  whose 
enthralling  influence  he  never  wholly  freed,  or  perhaps 
wished  to  free,  himself.  Although  Victorinus'  teaching 
could  not  give  him  what  every  soul,  sooner  or  later,  must 
experience,  "  the  tears  of  confession,  the  troubled  spirit, 
the  broken  and  contrite  heart ",  although  there  was  no 
Voice  therein  crying,  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  that  labour  and 
are  heavy-laden  ",  yet  the  atmosphere  of  Plotinus  was  an 


VICTORINUS  79 

air  in  which  the  soul  could  at  least  breathe.  God,  he 
learned  as  he  read,  is  the  all-comprehensive  Unity,  the 
Soul  of  souls,  the  Life  that  permeates  the  whole  world 
and  quivers  in  the  very  leaves  on  the  trees.  He  is  incor- 
ruptible and  changeless  Spirit,  the  Immortal,  the  Good, 
the  One.  From  one  passage  in  the  "  Confessions  "  we 
may  infer  that  Augustine,  during  his  Neo-Platonic  mood, 
actually  attained  in  a  fleeting  glimpse  to  the  vision  of 
"  That  which  is  ",  and  from  later  incidents  we  know  that 
the  capacity  for  the  Ecstasy,  even  as  the  capacity  for  so 
many  other  and  varied  experiences  of  the  search  after  the 
Divine,  in  which  he  was  ever  "  restless  ",  to  use  his  own 
word,  was  certainly  latent  in  him. 

Victorinus  was  converted  to  Christianity  in  his  old  age, 
about  360,  and  there  was  naturally  immense  rejoicing  in 
the  Christian  community  at  the  conversion  of  so  promi- 
nent a  personage.*  He  set  himself  to  the  important  and 
very  difficult  task  of  transmuting  his  Neo-Platonist  doc- 
trines of  the  Trinity  into  a  body  of  Christian  theology,  and 
that  in  the  Latin  tongue.  The  delicate  nuances  of  the 
Greek  language  are  exactly  suited  to  the  refinements  neces- 
sary in  treating  of  such  a  subject,  and  it  is  not  surprising 
that  a  great  deal  of  Neo-Platonism  got  itself  worked  thor- 
oughly into  Christian  acceptance  sometimes  in  a  more 
unqualified  and  daring  form  than  Plotinus  himself  would 
have  countenanced.  The  Father  is  "  cessatio  ",  "  quies  ", 
"  silentium  ",  nay,  Victorinus  goes  further  and  says,  com- 
paring the  Father  to  the  Son,  that  the  Father  is  6  fir]  mv, 
the  Son  6  iov,  reminding  us  here  of  Clement  with  his  ultra- 
refinement  of  the  Monad  past  and  beyond  even  "  a  point ", 
and  reminding  us  too  that  Plotinus  would  never  go  so  far 
for  fear  of  confounding  That  which  Is— supra-essential 
God — with  matter,  disintegration,  that  which  is  not.  Yet 
with  Victorinus,  this  "cessatio",  the  0  fir^  wi/,  the  Absolute, 

^  Cf.  Conf.  viii.  2-5. 


8o  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

is  also  "  motus ",  and  there  is  for  him  no  contradiction 
in  terms  in  this.  "Motus"  is  not  "  mutatio  ";' motion 
is  not  change.  But  in  what  does  this  "  motus ",  neces- 
sarily eternal,  consist  ?  In  the  eternal  generation  of  the 
Son.  The  Son  is  That  in  which  the  Father  sees  Himself, 
or,  we  might  say,  with  Clement,  comes  to  Self-conscious- 
ness. He  is  the  Word  of  the  Absolute,  the  "  forma  "  of 
God — it  is  the  synonym  of  the  Greek  phrase  Trarpo^  /J'Op(f>i]. 
The  Son  is  also, — a  familiar  thought — the  cosmic  princi- 
ple, the  "  elementum  ",  "  habitaculum  ",  "  locus  "  of  the 
universe.  All  that  is  potential  is  actualized  in  Him.  Very 
important,  as  occurring  for  the  first  time  in  theology,  and 
recurring  as  an  accepted  proposition  ever  since,  is  Vic- 
torinus'  definition  of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  the  "  copula  " 
of  the  Trinity.  So  Newman  wrote  in  Victorinus'  own 
phrase,  "  As  Thou  in  perfect  love  dost  join  the  Father 
and  the  Son".  The  theology  of  Victorinus  was  destined 
to  be  exceedingly  pregnant  in  the  thought  of  Christian 
Mysticism.  Many  of  the  later  philosophical  mystics  caught 
up,  and  pushed  to  their  fullest  extent,  not  in  the  specula- 
tive, but  in  the  psychological  sphere,  his  ideas  of  the 
"ground"  of  the  Godhead  being  "  quies ",  "cessatio", 
"  silentium  "  ;  a  further,  and  more  curious,  doctrine  of 
his,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  symboHzes  the  female  principle 
in  the  God-nature,  that  He  is  in  fact  the  "  Mother  of  Christ  ", 
has  had  echoes,  here  and  there,  amongst  mystics  since, 
although  the  Church  refused  it  sanction. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  Augustine  as  a  student,  during 
his  second  great  spiritual  stage,  of  Victorinus'  translation 
of  the  "  Enneads ".  In  truth,  just  as  weU-nigh  every 
school  of  Christian  thought  can  make  an  appeal  for  a  favour- 
able verdict  to  the  teachings  of  his  many-sided  genius,  so 
in  a  specially  marked  fashion  can  Christian  Mysticism. 
Harnack  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "  St.  Augustine  became 
the  father  of  that  mysticism  which  was  naturahzed  in  the 


ST.  AUGUSTINE  8i 

Catholic  Church,  down  to  the  Council  of  Trent  ".  ^  Dr. 
Rufus  Jones  calls  him  "  the  real  father  of  Catholic  mysti- 
cism "}  But  Harnack  goes  to  the  root  of  the  matter — 
for  there  is  much,  of  course,  that  has  always  militated 
against  the  free  play  of  Mysticism  in  Augustine's  hard 
orthodoxy — by  pointing  out  that  Augustine  was  the  first 
real  Christian  psychologist,  and  that  it  is  the  quality  of 
his  psychological  analysis  that  makes  also  the  intensely 
real  and  intimate  quahty  of  his  mysticism.  The  "  Con- 
fessions "  precede  the  "  City  of  God  ".  It  was  Augus- 
tine's unfaltering  fidelity  to  a  true  psychology  that  led  him 
in  the  first  instance  to  his  Manicheeism — "  his  massive 
experience  and  even  excessive  realization  of  the  destruc- 
tive force  of  Evil  and  of  the  corrupt  inclinations  of  man's 
heart  .  .  .  hot  and  concrete ",  as  Baron  von  Hiigel  ex- 
presses it .3  His  Neo-Platonic  studies  saved  him  from 
the  ultimate  pessimism  of  Manicheeism,  and  brought  him 
into  a  new  realm  of  light  and  fife,  a  true  "  praeparatio 
Evangelica  ",  yet  enough  of  that  "  hot  and  concrete  "  sense 
of  sin  remained  with  him  to  keep  him  from  a  permanent 
residence  even  in  that  fair  realm,  where  Evil  was  reduced 
to  a  mere  subtraction  of  good,  almost  to  a  nothingness. 
Augustine's  cravings  were  still  unsatisfied,  and  at  last 
Christianity  "spoke  to  his  condition".  Yet  it  is  strange 
to  note  how,  even  after  his  conversion  (that  is,  as  late  as 
397),  i^  his  acute  and  balanced  record  of  his  own  convic- 
tions, the  judgement  of  the  born  psychologist,  he  can 
still  note  the  existence  of  his  Neo-Platonist  conception 
of  sin.  "  All  things  that  are  corrupted  are  deprived  of 
good.  But,  if  they  be  deprived  of  all  good,  they  will  cease 
to  exist.  .  .  .  Evil  is  no  substance ".  But  that  is  just 
an  instance,  and  a  very  good  one,  of  the  secret  of  Augus- 

^  History  of  Dogma,  v.  p.  86. 
2  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  87. 
2  The  Mystical  Element  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  293. 
M.O.  G 


82  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

tine's  greatness.  He  recognized  opposing,  seemingly  con- 
tradictory, tendencies,  in  human  thought  on  the  highest 
matters,  even  in  the  best  human  thought,  and  he  gave 
them  a  place  and  a  consideration  in  the  synthesis  of  his 
own  mind,  but  he  did  not  attempt  to  harmonize  them, 
an  attempt  which,  as  Harnack  notes,  leads  to  mere  "  theo- 
logical chatter ",  and  is  usually  doomed  to  be  summed 
up  in  some  passing  "  — ism  ".  In  more  senses  than  one, 
Augustine  was  the  great  Catholic  doctor.  Of  two  things 
he  was  sure,  God  and  his  own  soul.  "  Si  enim  faUor,  sum  " 
— "Even  though  I  err,  stiU  I  am",  he  cried,  and  his  desire 
was  to  "  know  God  and  the  soul :  nothing  more  ".  One 
factor  there  was  in  Augustine's  life  and  age,  which  helps 
much  to  account  for  his  early  and  enduring  sense  of  the 
reality  and  terror  of  sin,  and  also  for  his  consciousness  of 
the  inner  push  of  the  soul  to  escape  upwards  and  find  a 
home,  a  "  City  of  God/'.  He  was  at  one  moment  in  his 
earlier  career  at  one  \vith  the  Manichees  in  their  concep- 
tion of  the  concrete  evil  of  matter,  their  pessimism  and 
fatalism ;  at  another  moment  we  can  almost  hear  him 
echoing  the  desirous  cry  of  Plotinus,  "  Let  us  fly  hence 
to  our  dear  fatherland  ".     Why  ? 

Because  the  world  in  which  Aurelius  Augustine  hved 
was  visibly  changing  and  crumbling  around  him.  The 
older  ci\dhzation,  that  seemed  rooted  to  endure  for  all 
time,  the  vast  world-empire  of  Rome,  the  City  that  all 
men  looked  to  as  the  centre  and  mainspring  of  the  machin- 
ery of  Hfe,  all  were  aUke  threatened.  When  Rome  it- 
self was  menaced  again  and  again  and  at  length  taken  and 
sacked  by  the  hordes  of  Alaric,  when  new  barbarian  forces 
of  incalculable  potential  strength  were  pressing  in  on  every 
side  on  an  Empire  whose  very  helplessness  was  largely 
due  to  luxury,  idleness  and  lust,  no  wonder  that  it  seemed 
more  than  ever  necessary  to  reassure  oneself  of  a  "  City 
that  hath  foundations  ",  and  to  reveal  to  souls  shrinking 


AUGUSTINE'S   MYSTICISM  83 

before  the  outward  portents  of  change  and  disaster  the 
changeless  refuge  of  the  Eternal  Love.  Augustine  was 
great  in  himself,  but  that  his  voice,  with  its  variant  ca- 
dences of  severity  and  tenderness,  and  its  unfaltering  cer- 
tainty of  God,  should  sound  at  the  crisis  of  two  eras,  two 
civilizations,  two  worlds, — this  gave  him  his  position  of 
unexampled  authority  in  the  councils  of  the  Church,  and 
over  the  hearts  of  men. 

To  come  directly  to  the  mysticism  of  St.  Augustine, — 
and  it  is  this  quality  in  his  rehgion  which  appeals  to  the 
heart  and  has  made  the  "  Confessions  "  a  spiritual  classic — 
we  may  note  as  an  interesting  point  that  what  would  now- 
a-days  be  termed  the  psychic  faculty  was  without  doubt 
present  in  him.  This  is  evidenced  by  the  famous  story 
of  his  conversion,  which  ranks  with  those  of  St.  Paul,  of 
St.  Francis,  of  Bunyan,  and  of  Fox  in  dramatic  intensity,  as 
in  lasting  effect.  Augustine,  sitting  in  his  garden,  the  roll 
of  the  New  Testament  in  his  hand,  hears  a  voice  that  bids 
him,  "  Tolle  ;  lege  ".  He  opens  at  the  passage  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  "  Put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ",  with 
the  words  that  follow,  and  it  makes  of  him  a  new  man, 
or  rather,  probably,  finishes  with  one  decisive  touch  a 
process  of  gradual  illumination  and  change  of  whose  length 
and  significance  he  had  himself  been  but  partially  aware. 
But  this  is  not  the  only  place  in  which  his  talk  of  things 
unseen  has  something  psychic  about  it.  He  tells  us,  for 
instance,  that  before  his  conversion,  when  on  the  Neo- 
Platonic  track,  he  once  "  in  one  trembling  glance  .  .  . 
arrived  at  That  Which  Is  " — the  experience,  in  exact  phrase, 
of  Tennyson  centuries  afterwards — though  he  "  lacked 
strength  to  fix  his  gaze  thereon  ",  ^  and  he  tells  us  too  that 
his  mother  Monnica  could  discern  God's  communion  with 
her  soul  "by  a  certain  indescribable  savour ".  Augus- 
tine's own  conceptions  about  God  and  the  soul  retained 
^  Conf.  bk.  viii.  ch.   17. 


84  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

jn  many  particulars  distinctly  Plotinian  characteristics. 
He  was  always  "  half  a  Platonist ",  though,  needless  to 
say,  he  wholly  and  absolutely  discards  such  later  Neo- 
Platonist  aberrations  as  theurgy  and  necromancy,  pouring 
rough  and  wholesome  scorn  upon  them.  God,  to  repeat 
Dr.  Inge's  summary  of  Augustine's  teaching  on  this  point, 
"  is  above  all  that  can  be  said  of  Him.  We  must  not  even 
caU  Him  ineffable  ;  He  is  best  adored  in  silence,  best  known 
by  nescience ;  best  described  by  negatives  ".  *  He  is  ab- 
solutely changeless,  and  this  colours  all  Augustine's  well- 
known  theories  on  predestination.  The  soul  is  drawn 
God-wards  by  an  irresistible  impulse,  and  must  scale  seven 
stages  of  ascent,  the  highest  three  of  which  are,  as  with 
all  mystics,  purgation,  illumination,  and  union.  It  is 
perhaps  in  his  insistence  on  the  last  named,  on  Union  rather 
than  on  Knowledge,  that  we  feel  the  parting  of  the  Vv^ays 
between  Augustine's  and  Plotinus'  souls.  The  difference 
was  made  by  Augustine's  acceptance  of  belief  in  the  In- 
carnation, and  the  key  to  that  indescribable  change  of 
method  in  the  soul's  intercommunion  with  the  Divine 
which  parts  the  personal  part  of  the  "  Enneads  "  from 
the  "  Confessions "  is  the  word  Love.  From  beginning 
to  end  Love — a  Love  responded  to,  or  rather,  a  Love  which 
has  itself  evoked  the  soul's  love — thrills  through  the  Con- 
fessions. "  Oh  Love,  too  late  have  I  known  Thee  ",  he 
cries  at  the  outset,  and  all  the  mystic's  yearning  and  re- 
gret are  to  be  found  in  that  sentence.  Even  illumination, 
knowledge,  are  bound  up  with  love.  "  I  beheld  with  the 
mysterious  eye  of  my  soul  the  light  that  never  changes, 
above  the  eye  of  my  soul,  above  my  intelligence.  It  was 
something  altogether  different  from  any  earthly  illumina- 
tion. ...  He  who  knows  the  truth  knows  that  light, 
and    he    who    knows    that     light    knows    eternity.     Love 

1  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  p.  128. 


AUGUSTINE  AND   MONNICA  85 

knows  that  light  ".  *  And  again,  "  What  do  I  love  when 
I  love  Thee  ?  .  ,  .  I  love  a  kind  of  Hght  and  melody  and 
fragrance  and  food  and  embrace,  when  I  love  my  God 
.  .  .  where  there  shineth  upon  my  soul  what  space  con- 
taineth  not,  and  where  there  soundeth  what  time  doth 
not  steal  away,  where  there  is  fragrance  which  a  breath 
scattereth  not,  where  there  is  savour  that  eating  doth  not 
minish,  and  an  embrace  that  satiety  doth  not  dissolve. 
This  I  love  when  I  love  my  God".  "Thy  God",  he  tells 
his  soul,  "  is  the  Life  of  thy  life  ".^  And  yet,  with  all  this 
wonderful  familiarity  of  intercourse  there  goes  the  "  holy 
fear  "  which  makes  Augustine  the  mystic  also  Augustine 
the  saint.  "  What  is  this  which  flashes  in  upon  me,  and 
thrills  my  heart  without  wounding  it  ?  I  tremble  and  I 
burn  ;  I  tremble,  feeling  I  am  unlike  Him  ;  I  burn,  feeling 
I  am  hke  Him  ".  ^  But  best  of  all,  as  well  as  best-known 
by  picture  and  by  description,  was  that  hour  when  Augus- 
tine sat  in  contemplation  with  his  mother  Monnica,  all 
her  long  prayers  for  her  son  at  length  and  fully  answered, 
and  when  together  they  sought  and  found  communion 
with  the  Ineffable  Love,  mounting  beyond  time  and  space 
tiU  their  souls  "  for  an  instant  touched  "  "  that  Eternal 
Wisdom  which  abideth  over  all  things".  There  is  some- 
thing so  exquisitely  Christian  in  this  mutual  contempla- 
tion and  rapture  of  mother  and  son,  touching  the  heart 
as  it  does  more  nearly  than  the  most  exalted  ecstasy  of 
some  saintly  soHtary,  that  a  few  sentences  of  its  descrip- 
tion in  the  "  Confessions  "  ^  may  be  quoted.  "  As  now 
the  day  drew  nigh,  when  she  should  depart  out  of  this 
life  .  .  .  together  we  held  converse  very  sweet  and  '  for- 


^  Conf.  vii.   10,  transl.  by  Dr.  Bigg. 
^  Conf.  X.  ch.  6. 
^  Conf.  xi.  ch.  9. 

*  Conf.  ix.  ch.  10,  quoted  in  part  from  Jones'  Mystical  Religion, 
PP-  93-95- 


86  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

"getting  those  things  which  were  behind  and  reaching  forth 
unto  those  things  which  were  before  '  (Phil.  iii.  13)  we 
were  discussing  between  us  in  the  presence  of  the  truth, 
which  Thou  art,  of  what  kind  would  be  that  eternal  life 
of  the  Saints,  which  '  eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  '  (i  Cor. 
ii.  9).  .  .  .  And  when  our  converse  drew  to  such  an  end 
that  the  utmost  delight  of  the  bodily  senses,  in  the  clearest 
material  light,  by  the  side  of  the  enjoyment  of  that  life 
seemed  unworthy  not  only  of  comparison  with  it,  but  even  to 
be  named  with  it ;  raising  ourselves  with  a  more  glowing 
emotion  towards  ^the  '  Self -same  '  (Ps.  iv.  8,  Vulg.),  we 
wandered,  step  by  step  through  all  material  things,  and 
even  the  very  heaven  whence  sun  and  moon  and  stars 
shed  their  Hght  upon  the  earth.  And  further  still  we 
climbed,  in  inner  speech  and  thought,  and  in  the  wonder 
of  Thy  works,  and  we  reached  to  our  own  minds  and  passed 
beyond  them,  so  as  to  touch  the  realm  of  plenty,  where 
Thou  feedest  Israel  for  ever  in  the  pasture  of  the  truth, 
and  where  hfe  is  that  Wisdom,  by  which  all  things  are 
made,  both  those  which  have  been,  and  those  which  shall 
be ;  and  Itself  is  not  made,  but  is  now  as  it  was,  and  ever 
shall  be  ;  or  rather  in  It  is  neither  '  hath  been  '  nor  '  shall 
be ',  but  only  '  is ',  since  It  is  eternal.  .  .  .  And  while  we 
thus  speak  and  pant  after  it,  with  the  whole  stress  of  our 
hearts  we  just  for  an  instant  touched  it,  and  we  sighed, 
and  left  there  bound  the  '  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit '  (Rom. 
viii.  23),  and  then  returned  to  the  broken  murmurs  of  our 
own  mouth,  where  the  word  hath  its  beginning  and  its 
end  ".  And  he  adds  :  "  We  were  saying  then  :  If  to  any 
one  should  grow  hushed  the  tumult  of  the  flesh,  hushed 
the  images  of  earth,  and  of  the  waters,  and  the  air,  hushed, 
too,  the  poles,  and  if  the  very  soul  should  grow  hushed 
to  itself,  and  were  by  cessation  of  thought  to  pass  beyond 
itself ;    if  aU  dreams,   and  imaginary   revelations,   every 


STEPHEN   BAR   SUDAILI  ^y 

tongue  and  every  token,  were  hushed,  and  whatsoever 
falls  out  through  change  ...  if  now  He  by  Himself  should 
speak,  not  through  them,  but  of  Himself,  that  so  we  should 
hear  His  Word,  not  uttered  by  the  voice  of  angel,  nor  by 
thunders  of  a  cloud,  nor  by  a  parable  of  comparison,  but 
Himself,  Whom  in  these  we  love  ;  if,  I  say,  we  should  hear 
Him,  without  these,  as  now  we  strained  ourselves,  and 
in  the  flight  of  thought  touched  upon  the  Eternal  Wisdom 
that  abideth  over  all  things  ;  if  this  were  continued  and 
other  visions  of  nature  far  inferior  taken  away,  and  this 
one  alone  should  ravish  and  absorb  and  enwrap  the  be- 
holder of  it  amid  inward  joys,  so  that  life  everlasting  might 
be  of  such  a  kind,  as  was  that  one  moment  of  comprehen- 
sion for  which  we  sighed  ;  were  not  this  an  '  Enter  thou 
into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord  '  ?  " 

There  was  another  chain  of  teaching  besides  that  of 
Victorinus  and  Augustine  whereby  Neo-Platonist  Mysti- 
cism found  its  way  into  the  Western  Church.  The  Orien- 
tal influences  which  may  be  detected  in  parts  of  Plotinus' 
teaching,  and  are  undisguised  in  the  writings  of  such  men 
as  Proclus,  who  used  to  say  that  a  philosopher  should  be 
the  hierophant  of  the  whole  world,  were  not  confined  to 
the  moribund  schools  of  Athens.  Among  the  Syrian  monks 
of  the  third  to  the  fifth  centuries  Oriental  speculation  was 
both  rampant  and  daring.  The  writings  of  one  of  these 
mystics,  the  Book  of  Hierotheus  so-called,  which  the  canon- 
ized Dionysius  the  Areopagite  named  "  a  second  Bible  ", 
and  which  he  regarded  as  nearly  inspired,  have  come  down 
to  us.  According  to  a  steady  Syriac  tradition,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  actual  evidence  of  Gregory  bar  'Ebraia,  a 
Monophysite  patriarch  of  the  twelfth  century,  ^  Hiero- 
theus was  in  reaHty  a  Syrian  mystic  of  Edessa,  Stephen 

1  Gregory  in  turn  based  his  assertion  on  the  witness  of  Cyriac, 
Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  793-817. 


88  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

bar  Sudaili,  who  lived  late  in  the  fifth  century,  Cyriac 
called  him  a  heretic,  and  Dr.  Inge  regards  his  system  as  a 
sort  of  Pan-nihilism,  whose  true  parentage  was  Indian 
Brahminism,  All  Nature  is  consubstantial  with  the  Di- 
vine Essence,  which  is  an  Absolute  of  "  bare  indetermina- 
tion ",  beyond  distinction  of  Self  or  Other.  The  process 
of  Nature  is  an  emanation  from  this  Absolute,  which  is 
Motion,  the  present  world ;  union  with  Christ,  which  is 
rest ;  and  a  final  fusion  again  with  the  Absolute.  Union 
with  Christ  is  progressive  and  consists  of  four  stages,  of 
which  the  fourth  and  final  stage  may  be  temporarily  sighted 
or  attained  even  here.  Stephen  claims  this  experience 
more  than  once,  (i)  The  soul  must  by  self-purification 
unite  a  certain  spark  of  the  Good  which  belongs  to  it  by 
nature  with  the  Universal  Essence  from  which  it  has  sprung. 
(2)  It  undergoes  a  sort  of  spiritual  crucifixion,  with  the 
soul  on  the  right  and  the  body  on  the  left ;  it  descends 
into  Hades,  and  reascends  to  Paradise.  (3)  It  receives 
a  baptism  of  the  Spirit  and  of  fire,  and  enters  a  perfect 
sonship.  (4)  It  is  wholly  and  utterly  absorbed  into  its 
own  original  "  luminous  Essence ".  Here  once  more  is 
the  quiet  and  silence,  the  stage  beyond  all  distinctions, 
of  the  Absolute.  The  second  and  third  stages  are  inter- 
esting, as  presaging  mystical  doctrines  which  had  much 
vogue  later.  The  third  especially  is  famihar  in  our  own 
day. 

Apart  from  the  curiosity  of  finding  doctrines  of  an  almost 
Indian  cast  promulgated  within  the  Church  of  the  fifth 
century,^   Stephen   bar   Sudaili,   if  we  identify  him   vdth 

1  Philosophy,  however,  both  within  and  without  the  Church, 
had  often  turned  its  eyes  longingly  to  the  East.  Origen  and  Phil- 
ostratus  both  commended  the  example  of  "  the  Indians  "  and  it 
will  be  remembered  that,  on  their  expulsion  from  Athens,  the 
remnant  of  the  Neo-Platonic  school  made  its  wistful  and  futile 
pilgrimage  to  the  Persian  court. 


DIONYSIUS  THE  AREOPAGITE  89 

"  Hierotheus ",  is  chiefly  important  as  being  one  of  the 
sources  from  which  a  writer,  almost  as  mysterious,  and 
infinitely  more  influential,  drew  his  inspiration.  In  scarcely 
less  degree  than  the  great  Augustine,  Dionysius  the  Areo- 
pagite  from  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  onwards  was 
quoted  and  deferred  to  by  the  Medieval  Church  as  an  in- 
disputable authority,  especially  in  the  domain  of  mystical 
theology.  How  immense  the  weight  of  that  authority 
was  we  may  best  judge  when  we  find  the  Scholastics,  (usually 
though  erroneously  supposed  to  be  in  opposition  to  the 
Mystics),  headed  by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  himself,  making 
copious  references  to  him.  Indeed,  Balthazar  Corderius, 
the  great  Jesuit  editor  of  Dionysius,  goes  so  far  as  to  say, 
"  Observatu  dignissimum  quomodo  S.  Dionysius  primus 
Scholasticae  Theologiae  jecerit  fundamenta,  quibus  ceteri 
deinceps  theologi  earn  quae  de  Deo  rebus-que  divinis  in 
Scholis  traditur  doctrinam  omnem  inaedificarunt  ".^  The 
story  of  the  winning  of  this  vast  influence  is  one  of  the 
strangest  in  Church  history.  The  facts,  as  known,  are 
these.  At  a  council  held  at  Constantinople  in  533,  Severus, 
patriarch  of  Antioch,  and  his  followers  upheld  Monophy- 
site  doctrines  and  appealed  for  confirmation  to  the  writings 
of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite.  This,  one  would  suppose, 
would  be  an  unfavourable  introduction  to  the  Church's 
notice,  but  the  quotations  were  taken  as  garbled,  and 
henceforth  increasing  respect  was  paid  to  the  Areopagite's 
works,  and  heretics  and  orthodox  alike  vied  in  culling 
extracts  from  them.  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  in  the  West, 
and  Maximus  in  the  East,  wrote  notes  on  them,  the  Lateran 
Council  of  649   used  them   as  a  bulwark  against   Mono- 

*  Observ.  generates  in  Dion.  12.  "  It  is  very  worthy  of  observa- 
tion how  S.  Dionysius  first  laid  those  foundations  of  Scholastic 
Theology,  on  which  afterwards  other  theologians  built  up  that 
doctrine  which  is  handed  down  in  the  Schools  concerning  God 
and  Divine  things." 


90  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

thelitism,  and  in  the  eighth  century  they  reached  France. 
Then  a  fresh  and  patriotic  furore  arose,  owing  to  Hilduin, 
Abbot  of  St.  Denys  in  Paris,  setting  out  to  identify  the 
Areopagite  with  the  French  patron  saint ;  this  identifi- 
cation, though  of  no  historical  value  whatsoever,  did  much 
to  promote  the  popularity  and  authority  of  Dionysius 
in  France,  and  it  was  at  the  Court  of  Charles  the  Bald  that 
the  Irishman,  John  Scotus  Erigena,  himself  a  great  mystic, 
made  his  celebrated  translation  of  Dionysius  into  Latin, 
and  thus  fairly  started  his  enormous  vogue  in  the  Western 
Church,  by  bringing  his  teaching  within  the  reach  of  all. 
Dionysius  claimed  to  be  the  disciple  of  St.  Paul  mentioned 
in  the  Acts  ;  one  of  his  books,  on  the  "  Divine  Names  ",  was 
dedicated  to  the  irah  (or  "  child  ")  Timothy,  another  to 
Titus,  a  third  to  "  John  the  Divine,  Apostle  and  Evangelist 
exiled  in  Patmos  ",  which,  were  it  a  contemporary  work, 
would  indeed  settle  much  that  is  perplexing  to  modern 
thought  about  the  authorship  of  the  Johannine  books. 
Again,  he  claims  to  have  remembered  the  eclipse  at  the  time 
of  the  Crucifixion,  and  to  have  stood  with  St.  Peter  and 
"  his  master  Hierotheus  "  by  the  tomb  of  the  Blessed  Virgin. 
All  this  is,  unfortunately,  incompatible  with  several  glaring 
anachronisms  in  his  works,  which,  although  not  entirel}'' 
unnoticed  by  antiquity,  did  not  affect  its  reverent  behef 
in  the  authenticity  of  the  writer's  assumed  name  as  they 
affect  our  judgement  nowadays.^  For  instance,  viroa-Taa-t^ 
is  used  in  its  post-Nicene  sense  ;  mention  is  made  of  monks  : 
ecclesiastical  tradition  is  called  ap'^aia  7rapa86ai<i  :  Igna- 
tius's  phrase,  "  My  love  is  crucified  ",  appears  in  the  "  Divine 
Names ".  Further,  no  mention  of  Dionysius  is  made  by 
either  St.  Jerome  or  Eusebius  in  their  lists  of  Church  writers, 

^  And  this,  as  Fr.  Sharpe  acknowledges,  in  spite  of  Archbishop 
Darboy's  vindication,  which  urged  all  that  could  be  urged,  of  the 
traditional  authorship.  See  Mysticism :  Its  True  Nature  and 
Value,  pp.  197-9. 


DIONYSIUS  AND  NEO-PLATONISM  91 

nor  any  notice  at  all  taken  of  him  before  the  sixth  century. 
But  what  weighs  most  of  all  is  that  Dionysius  is  saturated 
with  later  Neo-Platonist  doctrine,  his  style  is  that  of  the 
later  Neo-Platonists,  his  ideas  are  theirs,  and  he  quotes 
directly  from  Proclus'  book,  "  De  Subsistentia  Malorum  ", 
He  was,  in  fact,  almost  certainly  an  Athenian  student,  a 
pupil  perhaps  of  Proclus,  more  likely  of  Damascius,  the 
last  master  in  the  school.  He  assumed  his  nom  de  flume 
according  to  a  custom  not  considered  censurable  in  that  age, 
and  the  name  he  chose  was  naturally  that  of  a  distinguished 
Athenian  convert. 

Dionysius'  thought  in  several  particulars,  as  we  shall 
note,  became  inextricably  interwoven  with  the  Christianity 
that  accepted  it  with  such  eager  readiness,  and  the  normal 
religious  mind  even  of  the  present  day  bears  unconsciously 
traces  of  his  teaching,  yet  his  system  is  "  far  removed  from 
the  simpHcity  of  the  primitive  message.  It  is  a  religion 
of  ripe  speculation,  and,  spite  of  the  abundance  of  Bible 
texts  throughout  the  writings,  it  is  .  .  .  Neo-Platonic 
philosophy  slightly  sprinkled  with  baptismal  water  from 
a  Christian  font ".  ^  Thus  Professor  Rufus  Jones ;  and 
Dr.  Inge  agrees  with  him.  "  His  philosophy  is  that  of  his 
day — the  later  Neo-Platonism,  with  its  strong  Oriental 
affinities ".  ^  Like  the  Alexandrines,  "  his  object  is  to 
present  Christianity  in  the  guise  of  a  Platonic  Mysterios- 
ophy ".  He  employs  many  mystery-terms,  and  in  his 
philosophy  goes  to  the  furthest  extreme  of  refinement  in 
definition,  using  in  his  doctrine  of  God  every  subtlety  of 
which  the  Greek  in  which  he  wrote  was  capable.  God  the 
Father  is  identified  with  the  Neo-Platonic  ^Monad,  as  might 
be  expected,  but  unhappily,  Dionysius  parts  company  with 
Plotinus  and  associates  himself  with  lamblichus  and  Pro- 
clus in  exalting  the  "  One  "  even  above  Goodness.    But 

^  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.   no. 
^  Cf.  Christian  Mysticism,  p.  105,  et  seq. 


92  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

He  is  exalted  above  all  possible  thought,  all  conceivable 
differentiation  and  relation.  He  is  "  superessential  Indeter- 
mination  ",  "  superessential  Essence  ",  "  irrational  Mind  ", 
"  the  absolute  /i^  wv  above  all  existence  ".  He  is  the  Being 
of  all  that  is,  and  all  Being  is  in  Him  ;  therefore  Dionysius, 
hke  most  speculative  mystics,  taking  the  rejection  of  duaUty 
as  an  axiom,  can  find  hardly  any  definition,  let  alone  loca- 
tion, for  evil.  Evil,  he  finally  decides,  is  good  which  has 
got  into  the  wrong  place  by  a  sort  of  accident,  it  is  in  itself 
"  nothing,  nohow,  nowhere  "  ;  God  sees  it  as  good.  This 
is  not  by  any  means  an  untenable  theory,  and,  above  all, 
it  is  not  Pantheism,  which  Dionysius  was  anxious  to  avoid, 
for  Pantheism  holds  everything  "  equally  Divine  as  it 
stands  ",  whereas,  by  the  Dionysian  theory,  evil  is  "  inhar- 
monious, disorderly ",  it  needs  transmuting  or  rearrange- 
ment before  it  can  be  recognized  as  Good.  If  God  "  sees 
it  as  good  ",  we  cannot  do  so  at  present. 

Dionysius  accepted  the  doctrine,  dear  to  the  East,  of 
the  out-flux  of  things  from  God  and  their  final  reflux  to 
Him.  Yet  all  will  not  be  absorbed  in  the  Di\  ine  at  the  end, 
to  the  extinction  of  individuality.  \  persistence  of  indi- 
viduality is  one  of  the  powers  granted  by  the  highest  Unity. 
The  first  of  emanations  from  the  One — an  eternal  emanation 
— is  the  Son,  who  is  identified  with  the  Logos,  and  the 
Plotinian  Nov<;.  He  is  also  the  "  Thing  in  itself  ",  "  Life 
in  itself",  "Wisdom^".  The  Father  is  One;  the  Son  hais, 
plurality,  namely,  fore-ordaining  reasons,  or  words,  and 
these  create  existences.  The  world  is  to  God  as  necessary 
as  the  sunshine  to  the  sun. 

It  will  be  noticed  how  in  several  places  this  canonized 
mystic  avoids  the  special  heresies  or  pitfalls  of  mysticism — 
Pantheism  on  the  one  hand.  Nihilism  on  the  other.  Even 
in  his  over-refinements  of  definition  of  the  One,*  it  must 

*  Cf.  Dion.  Areop.  De  Mysticd  Theologid,  chs.  iv.  and  v.  for  a 
torrent  of  negations  as  to  the  Divine  Being. 


THE   VIA   NEGATIVA  93 

be  remembered  that  the  subtleties  of  the  Greek  language 
made  possible  to  the  theologian  expression  of  thought  for 
which  Latin  is  cumbrously  inadequate,  and  of  which  English 
is  incapable.  In  any  case,  his  attempts  to  convey  how 
infinitely  the  Being  of  God  surpasses  the  utmost  efforts  of 
human  comprehension  are  to  be  preferred  to  the  anthropo- 
morphic and  often  puerile  conceptions  of  God  current  in 
rehgious  literature  of  the  present  day.  It  may  be  objected 
that  Dionysius'  writings  in  no  way  correspond  to  "  current 
rehgious  ^hterature".  There  was,  of  course,  no  current 
literature  in  his  day,  but  his  influence  was  so  wide-spread 
and  profound  that  his  ideas  come  as  near  as  is  possible  to 
that  description.  In  four  particulars,  especially,  he  influ- 
enced the  thought  of  generations  after  him,  and  in  one,  the 
last,  the  popular  rehgion  even  of  the  present  time,  (i) 
It  was  Dionysius  who  more  than  any  other  taught  the  Via 
Negaiiva  as  the  true  way  of  ^approaching  God.  This  was 
nothing  new.  The  process  of  arriving  at  the  Divine  by 
abstraction,  by  stripping  away  from  the  mind  all  human 
ideas  as  to  aspects,  virtues,  or  quahties,  had  been  famiUar 
to  Clement  of  Alexandria,  with  his  soul's  "  apathy  "  in 
communion  with  God,  and  to  Basihdes  who  taught  it  in 
an  extreme  form  stamped  with  Augustine's  approval,  "  We 
must  not  even  call  God  ineffable,  since  that  is  to  make  an 
assertion  about  Him  ".  Amongst  the  Neo-Platonists  Ploti- 
nus  had  taught  it,  but  his  positive  experience  of  contact 
with  the  Divine,  however  explained,  prevented  in  his  case 
such  a  whole-hearted  assertion  of  the  negative  method  as 
that  of  Proclus,  the  pure  scholastic,  who  first  presents  us 
with  phrases  about  "  forsaking  the  manifold  for  the  One  ", 
and  (a  term  afterwards  famous  in  Christian  Mysticism) 
"  sinking  into  the  Divine  Ground",  Dionysius  teaches  his 
Via  Negativa  by  a  beautiful  analogy.  "  Truly  to  see  and 
know  (Him  is)  by  the  abstraction  of  all  that  is  natural ;  as 
those  who  would  make  a  statue  out  of  the  natural  stone 


94  INFLUENCE  OF  NEO-PLATONISM 

abstract  all  the  surrounding  material  which  hinders  the 
sight  of  the  shape  lying  concealed  within,  and  by  that 
abstraction  alone  reveal  its  hidden  beauty ".  ^  (2)  The 
expressions  "  the  Divine  Dark  ",  the  "  super-luminous  gloom 
of  silence  ",  ^  "  this  most  luminous  darkness  "  in  which  "  we 
desire  to  abide  ",  appear  in  Dionysius,  and  became  common 
with  his  successors.  This  "  super-essential  ray  of  the  Divine 
Dark  "  must  be  found  with  "  the  eyeless  mind  ".  (3)  In 
other  words,  communion  with  the  One  Who  is  above  nature 
and  knowledge  must  be  by  supernatural  contact,  beyond 
ordinary  modes  of  consciousness,  that  is,  by  the  Ecstasy. 
This  is  described  in  Chapter  i,  of  the  "  Mystical  Theology  ". ' 
(4)  The  fourth  legacy  of  Dionysius  to  the  future  was  of  a 
curiously  different  kind.  His  study  of  Proclus  and  his  triads 
had  filled  him  with  the  idea  of  an  endless  procession  of 
descending  Existences  and  Powers  from  God.  God,  by  a 
positive  process,  "unveils  Himself  from  His  hiddenness  ", 
and  manifests  Himself  through  nine-fold  ranks  of  Cheru- 
bim, Seraphim,  and  AngeUc  beings,  and  then  on  earth 
through  nine-fold  orders  of  sacred  ministers  and  symbols. 
These  orders  are  explained  in  his  books  on  the  "  Heavenly 
Hierarchy  "  and  the  "  Ecclesiastical  Hierarchy  ".  The  celes- 
tial orders  are  as  follows — (i)  Seraphim,  Cherubim,  Thrones ; 
(2)  Dominations,  Virtues,  Powers  ;  (3)  Principalities,  Arch- 
angels, Angels ;  and  they  have  lived  on  with  a  curious 
authority  in  human  thought.  Nobody  questioned  either 
their  reality  or  their  order ;  in  later  days  poets  such  as 
Dante  and  Spenser  wove  music  on  the  theme  of  their  "  trinal 


^  Mystical  Theology.     Ch.  ii.  transl.  Fr.   Sharpe. 

-  This  is  the  darkness  of  excess  of  light.  "  The  divine  darkness 
is  the  inaccessible  light  ".     Cf.  Letter  V.  to  Dorotheus  the  Deacon. 

3  "  Leave  thou  the  senses,  and  the  operations  of  the  intellect 
and  all  things  sensible  and  intelligible,  and  things  that  are,  and 
things  that  are  not,  that  thou  mayest  rise  ...  by  ways  above  know- 
ledge to  union  with  Him  Who  is  above  all  knowledge  and  all  being  ". 


ERIGENA  95 

triplicities  "  ;  they  were  part  of  the  inspiration  of  medieval 
Art ;  now-a-days  we  sing  hymns  about  the  "  Orders  nine  ", 
and  "  thrones,  principahties,  virtues,  and  powers  ",  which 
derive  directly  from  the  Dionysian  theology.  It  is  strange 
that  one  so  "in  love  with  the  Absolute  "  and  with  abstract 
methods  of  thought  should  have  bequeathed  to  the  devout 
imagination  so  concrete  and  definite  a  picture  of  the  scheme 
and  the  work  of  the  world  to  come. 

We  cannot  end  this  chapter  without  a  reference  to  the 
strange  great  name  of  John  Scotus  Erigena.  John  the  Scot, 
or  the  "  Irish-born  " — the  two  designations  were  synony- 
mous at  that  day — was  first  known  as  an  Irish  scholar  of 
eminence  at  the  Court  of  Charles  the  Bald  in  847.  This 
grandson  of  Charlemagne  gathered  round  him  most  of  the 
light  and  learning  of  his  times,  and  to  these  Ireland  with  her 
"  troop  of  philosophers "  made  a  notable  contribution, 
Erigena  was  called  upon  in  851  to  answer  a  tract  by  Gott- 
schalk,  a  monk  of  Orbais  near  Rheims,  which  pushed  Augus- 
tine's doctrine  of  Predestination  to  its  furthest  limits,  and 
had  been  condemned.  In  refuting  this  Erigena  in  turn 
got  himself  into  serious  trouble.  He  had  deeply  imbibed 
Neo-Platonist  teaching,  and  the  gist  of  his  response  to 
Gottschalk  was  that  God  could  not  predestine  to  evil,  since 
evil  itself  was  a  negation,  had  no  meaning  except  in  the 
sphere  of  time,  and,  for  God,  "  was  not ".  The  Scot  was 
condemned  for  heretical  teaching, ^  one  critic  discovered 
not  less  than  106  heresies  in  his  tract  on  Predestination, 
while  another  labelled  it   as   "  barbarous   barking ".     Un- 


^  It  is  curious  how  both  extremes  of  thought — Gottschalk's  and 
Erigena's — struck  a  blow  at  the  reaUty  of  the  power  of  the  Church 
on  earth.  For,  if  souls  were  predestined  irrevocably  to  salvation 
or  damnation,  it  was  difficult  to  find  place  for  the  Church's  office 
of  seeking  and  saving  ;  as  difficult  as  to  find  justification  for  the 
solemn  significance  of  the  "  power  of  the  keys  "  if  evil  were  null 
and  void. 


96  INFLUENCE   OF   NEO-PLATONISM 

abashed,  however,  Erigena  went  on  his  way,  and,  soon  after, 
by  his  translation  of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  into  Latin, 
introduced  and  endeared  that  mystical  master  to  the  mind 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Of  Erigena's  own  system,  which  he 
elaborated  in  a  book,  "  On  the  Division  of  Nature ",  we 
may  note  that  he  not  only  interprets  Dionysius  and  the 
Alexandrines,  but  puts  an  emphasis  on  the  most  exaggerated 
parts  of  their  systems.  God  is  above  all  categories  of 
thought,  even  that  of  relation.  The  dogma  of  the  Holy 
Trinity  disappears,  for  the  Three  Persons  are  but  "  relative 
names  ",  and  are  absorbed  in  the  Absolute.  All  our  state- 
ments about  God  are  merely  metaphors ;  but  what  we 
deny  about  Him,  we  always  truthfully  deny.  This,  as  Dr. 
Inge  observes,  is  the  "  negative  road  "  of  Dionysius  carried 
to  its  last  term.  The  consequence  is  that,  although  Erigena 
tells  us  that  Creation  is  so  necessary  to  God,  as  His  Self- 
realization,  that  "  He  was  not,  before  He  made  the  Uni- 
verse ",  he  will  not  acknowledge  that  the  visible  world  can 
teach  us  anything  about  God  save  that  He  exists.  We  may 
not  infer,  for  instance,  from  the  world  attributes  of  His 
such  as  beauty  and  order.  Evil,  as  he  conceived  it,  has 
no  substance  and  will  disappear.  All  this  was  arid  enough, 
and  was  worked  out  drily  and  logically  ;  for  the  importance 
of  Erigena  lay  partly  in  the  fact  that  his  book,  although 
heretical,  was  the  pivot  on  which  Greek  Mysticism  began 
to  turn  into  medieval  Scholasticism.  But  he  had  other 
importance  besides.  In  some  of  his  doctrines  he  was  far 
before  his  time,  "  a  great  hght  in  a  dark  age  ".  Thus,  his 
belief  that  man's  soul  is  a  microcosm,  that  all  Nature, — 
corporeal,  vital,  sensitive,  rational,  intellectual — is  repre- 
sented in  him  ;  that  man  understands  the  world,  and  so 
gets  his  ghmpse  of  God,  because  the  forms  or  patterns  of 
that  world,  which  is  God's  self-realization,  are  in  him  ;  and 
that  one  day  man  will  "  become  what  he  beholds  " — this 
belief  has  a  profound  truth  in  it  and  takes  us  far.    In 


SAYINGS   OF  ERIGENA  97 

single  pregnant  sayings  Erigena  will  always  Uve.  Thus  : 
"  Thought  and  Action  are  identical  in  God  "  :  "  The  Word 
is  the  Nature  of  all  things  "  :  "  The  loss  and  absence  of 
Christ  is  the  torment  of  the  whole  creation,  nor  do  I  think 
there  is  any  other  "  :  "  There  are  as  many  revelations  of 
God  as  there  are  human  souls". 


M.C. 


CHAPTER   VI 

Three  Types  of  Medieval  Mysticism 

THE  Mysticism  of  the  East,  through  Augustine  and 
Erigena,  had  been  transplanted  to  its  new  and  more 
fruitful  soil  in  the  vigorous  West.  In  its  exaggerated, 
though  suggestive,  form,  as  developed  by  the  latter,  it  was 
destined  to  he  dormant,  a  seed  of  future  growth,  for  one  or 
two  centuries.  Erigena  was  simply  not  understood  by  his 
contemporaries,  who,  beyond  feehng  vaguely  that  there 
was  "  something  wrong "  in  his  speculations,  left  him 
and  his  works,  after  a  few  groping  "  refutations,"  severely 
alone.  ^  But  this  neglect  of  Erigena  and  his  kind  wears 
also  another  complexion.  The  curious  and  hearty  accept- 
ance of  Dionysius  hardly  contradicts  what  is  about  to  be 
said,  when  it  is  remembered  how  congenial  his  doctrine 
of  the  celestial  and  earthly  Hierarchies  was  to  the  Medieval 
mind,  and  when  his  unquestioned  identification  \\dth  the 
Areopagite,  and  his  confusion,  in  France,  with  the  national 
patron  saint,  are  taken  into  consideration.  The  truth 
was  that  in  the  world  of  mystical  thought  a  reaction,  and 
a  very  natural  reaction,  was  taking  place.  It  was  helped 
on  by  the  practical  and  unspeculative  bent  of  the  West. 

^  It  was  not  till  350  years  after  his  death  that  a  general  condemna- 
tion of  his  doctrines  was  promulgated  by  Honorius  III,  on  the 
appearance  of  Amabric  of  Bena  and  his  strongly  Pantheistic  school 
of  thought  at  Paris.  In  the  meantime,  however,  his  Eucharistic 
doctrine,  as  developed  by  Berengar,  had  been  proscribed  in  the 
middle  of  the  eleventh  century. 


THE   PERSON   OF  CHRIST  99 

Augustine  was  studied,  but  his  teaching  on  Predestination 
stirred  men's  minds  far  more  than  the  gleaming  traces  of 
his  Neo-PIatonism.  Dionysius'  Hierarchies  took  immediate 
hold  of  ecclesiastical  thought ;  his  Proclianism  had  to  bide 
its  time.  The  reaction  was  towards  a  far  more  definite 
Christology,  an  emphasis,  too  long  neglected  by  speculative 
Mysticism,  on  the  Person  and  work  of  the  Redeemer.  That 
was  bound  to  come.  The  contact  between  the  Christian 
Faith  and  the  ripest  development  of  Greek  philosophy  had 
taken  place,  and  in  that  contact  the  Faith  passed  through 
a  crisis  subtler  and  more  momentous  than  that  of  the 
agonies  of  persecution,  or  the  after-smiles  of  a  complacent 
and  persuasive  world.  The  best  intellects  on  both  sides 
were  so  keen  for  a  synthesis  of  all  that  was  good  that  it 
seemed  at  times  as  though  the  dogmas  of  the  Blessed  Trinity, 
of  the  Incarnation  and  Atonement  must  suffer  some  process 
of  transmutation  and  attenuation  before  being  assigned 
places  in  the  mystical  temple.  Again  and  again  in  these 
pages  we  have  noticed  a  kind  of  conscious  effort  to  find 
room  for  the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity  ;  how  anxiously 
he  has  been  de-humanized  into  the  cosmic  Principle,  or 
the  Thought  of  the  Thinker,  or  the  Consciousness  or  the 
Self-reahzation  of  the  One.  Partly  0A\ing  to  the  Eastern 
pre-occupation  with  the  idea  of  the  Absolute,  partly  owing 
to  the  habitual  Greek  notions  of  sin,  the  revelation  of  the 
Incarnate  Life  and  the  message  of  the  Cross  dropped  nearly 
out  of  sight.  Now  in  the  twelfth  century  a  great  change 
passed  over  the  spirit  of  Mysticism.  It  seemed  to  undergo 
a  kind  of  intensely  Christian  reaction,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  take  to  itself  a  practical  aspect  which  hitherto  it  had 
lacked.  We  may  say,  \vith  every  probability,  that  the 
latter  was  due  to  the  former.  But  whence  did  this  new 
activity  arise,  an  activity  which  manifested  itself  in  the 
spheres  of  ecclesiastical  and  even  political  influence  ;  which 
gave  to  the  imagination  a  new  S3mibolism,  to  the  intellect 


TOO     THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

the  reconciliations  of  Scholasticism ;  and  to  the  Church  at 
large  an  ardent  and  missionary  sympathy  with  the  sick- 
nesses and  sorrows  of  mankind  ? 

Such  an  activity,  distinctively  and  enthusiastically  Chris- 
tian, and  seeing  before  it  everywhere  the  figure  of  the 
Redeemer,  may  be  traced  to  three  sources.  First,  the  long 
life-or-death  struggle  Mith  Mohammedanism,  challenging 
the  essenlials  of  Christianity,  the  shock  of  whose  onset  had 
only  at  length  been  stayed  upon  the  plains  of  France  itself. 
Secondly,  and  arising  directly  from  this,  the  extraordinary 
movement,  later,  of  the  Crusades,  a  movement  which  ran 
like  wild-fire  through  Europe,  leavened  all  thought,  and 
permeated  every  class  of  society.  Nor  was  it  a  transitory 
fervour.  Lasting  for  centuries,  it  left  permanent  effects 
on  the  history  of  the  Church.  Of  this  movement,  so  far  as 
it  touches  our  subject,  we  can  but  note  here  that  from  first 
to  last  its  power  was  a  personal  devotion  to  the  honour  of 
the  Saviour.  The  Cross  and  the  Crucified  were  in  aU  minds. 
"  Salve,  caput  cruentatum  !  "  was  the  cry  of  every  heart. 
To  rescue  the  Saviour's  home.  His  shrines,  His  rehcs,  from 
the  defihng  touch  of  ;the  infidel  was  the  chief  aim,  however 
at  times  diverted  and  spoiled,  which  literally  led  men  to  give 
up  all  they  held  dear,  and  to  set  out  on  their  hazardous 
adventure.  With  the  Crusades,  Chivalry,  that  marvellous 
side-product  of  Western  Christianity,  took  its  rise — that 
Teutonic  form  of  the  Faith,  which,  for  the  first  time  con- 
secrating war  and  turning  devotion  into  a  passionate  adven- 
ture of  romance,  exactly  suited  the  Western  temperament, 
and  has  left  traces,  some  healthful,  others  more  dubious, 
in  Western  Christianity  ever  since.  Incidentally,  the  diffu- 
sion and  veneration  of  relics  was  vastly  increased ;  and 
the  power  of  the  Church,  and  so  of  orthodoxy  in  generaj, 
set  on  a  basis  not  to  be  disturbed  for  centuries,  owing  to 
the  great  amount  of  property  and  wealth  'of  which  the 
Church  became  tnistee  in  the  absence  of  the  Xrusadingilords, 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   MONASTERIES        loi 

or  sometimes  absolute  owner  in  the  event  of  their  non-return. 
Thirdly,  the  reformation  and  renewal  of  influence  on  the 
part  of  the  monasteries  had  a  vast  share  in  the  deepening 
of  the  Christian  influences  of  the  period.  Foundations  such 
a.^  Clairvaux  and  St.  Victor  played  a  critical  part  in  the 
story  of  Christian  Mysticism.  Even  here,  the  Crusading 
and  chivalric  spirit  must  be  reckoned  with.  It  was  in  the 
care  of  the  great  monasteries  that  men  left  their  lands  on 
setting  out  for  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  or  to  the  great  mon- 
asteries that  they  often  mortgaged  them  to  raise  arms  and 
funds.  Again,  as  Mr.  Cotter  Morrison  has  pointed  out  in 
his  "  Life  of  St.  Bernard  ",  the  attraction  of  the  monastic 
calm,  its  round  of  duty  and  prayer,  made  itself  felt  increa- 
singly on  men  become  world-weary  with  adventure  or 
travel  or  war.  The  sound  of  the  convent-bells  was  in  their 
ears,  and,  as  in  Russia  and  the  East  now-a-days,  so  then,  many 
a  worn-out  warrior  or  statesman  consecrated  his  remaining 
years  of  life  to  retirement  and  prayer.  But  these  things 
could  not  have  happened  had  not  the  monasteries  in  general 
been  worthy  of  their  trust.  The  fiery  energy  of  Gregory 
VII.  and  a  succession  of  reforming  Popes,  the  saintly  prac- 
ticality of  St.  Bernard  and  his  followers,  raised  the  monastic 
life  into  a  real  storehouse  of  regular  devotion,  homely  labour, 
and  disciplined  scholarship. 

It  may  be  asked.  What  had  this  to  do  with  Mysticism  ? 
It  had  a  vast  deal  to  do  with  it.  The  solitary  life,  and 
\\ith  it,  excesses  of  the  solitary  intellect  or  imagination, 
i;rew  steadily  rarer,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  the  great  practical 
jAystics  of  the  twelfth  century  revival  all  chose,  as  their 
most  helpful  means  of  realizing  the  mystical  ideal,  whether 
in  the  domain  of  action,  or  of  thought,  the  community  life, 
with  its  opportunities  of  self-control  and  self-subordination 
and  its  constant  interaction  of  soul  on  soul.  Even  such  a 
community  life  had  the  Saviour  approved  and  hallowed 
by  His  own  choice  of  the  Twelve. 


102     THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

As  representative,  in  nearly  all  particulars,  of  the  tenden- 
cies in  medieval  life  just  noticed,  St.  Bernard  (1091-1153) 
claims  our  notice.  In  many  respects,  we  have  in  him 
medieval  sainthness  at  its  best.  Profoundly  devotional, 
shrewdly  practical,  mixing  in  the  great  political  movements 
of  his  day,  swayed  by  the  national  and  religious  emotions 
that  stirred  his  fellowmen,  the  confidant  and  adviser  of 
Pope  and  Emperor  and  King,  he  is  yet  "  unspotted  by  the 
world",  he  returns  to  his  monks  to  talk  out  with  them  his 
deep  mystical  yearnings  after  the  Eternal  Love,  and,  as  he 
goes  along  his  way,  sings  his  "  Jesu,  dulcis  memoria  ".  It 
was  he  who,  turning  his  back  on  the  stately  Burgundian 
foundation  of  Clugny,  with  its  3,000  monks,  once  so  vener- 
able for  holiness  but  now  stained  with  disorder  and  luxury.^ 
entered  the  humbler  and  stricter  house  of  Citeaux  which 
had  reverted  to  the  full  severity  of  St.  Benedict's  original 
rule  ;  and  thence  founded  the  world-famous  monastery  of 
Clairvaux.  By  his  letters,  by  his  journeys,  and  by  his 
influence,  he  became  the  reformer  par  excellence  of  monastic 
life  and  morals.  But  it  was  also  St.  Bernard  who  preached, 
in  1 146,  the  Second  Crusade  at  Vezelai  in  the  presence  of 
Louis  VII.  and  a  multitude  of  his  subjects,  and  who  after- 
wards travelled  up  and  down  the  Rhineland,  stirring  up 
people  by  his  fiery  sermons  wherever  he  went  and  finally 
persuading  the  Emperor  Conrad  III.  himself  to  join  the 
march.2  Wliat,  meanwhile,  is  to  be  said  of  his  mysticism  ? 
This,  of  course,  chiefly  appears  in  his  "  Sermons  on  the 
Canticles  ",  and  they,  for  better  or  for  worse,  mark  an  epoch 
in  mystical  thought.  They  introduce  the  romantic  side 
of  mysticism  ;  they  also  bring  to  bear  a  thorough-going 
and  sometimes  far-fetched  Symbolism  to  the  interpretation 


*  See  ^^ornson's  Life  of  St.  Bernard,  pp.  119  et  seq. 
2  Morrison,  op.  cit.  Bk.  iv.  Ch,  ii.  gives  a  spirited  account  of  the 
preaching  of  the  Second  Crusade. 


ST.   BERNARD  103 

of  Holy  Writ.  Their  aim  was  to  teach  devout  and  loving 
contemplation  of  the  Crucified  Christ,  and  the  worship  of 
our  Saviour  as  the  "  Bridegroom  of  the  soul  ".  This  was 
nothing  new ;  nearly  all  the  Greek  Fathers,  and  one  or  two 
of  the  Western,  had  touched  on  the  imagery.  But  there 
is  no  doubt  that  St.  Bernard,  with  his  immense  influence 
over  his  times,  did  more  than  any  one  else  to  perpetuate 
this  marriage  symbolism.  Yet  here,  as  elsewhere,  Bernard 
preserved  a  great  deal  of  caution.  With  him,  it  was  the 
Church,  not  the  individual  soul,  as  so  often  afterwards, 
which  is  the  "  bride  "  of  Christ.  This  same  caution  is 
seen  in  another  part  of  his  mysticism.  Like  most  mystics, 
he  has  his  scale  of  stages  (four,  with  him)  in  the  soul's  love 
to  God,  of  which  love  he  says  beautifully,  "  Verus  amor  se  ipso 
contentus  est  ".  Yet  of  the  fourth  and  highest  stage,  "  that 
transformation  and  utter  self-loss  in  which  we  love  our- 
selves only  for  the  sake  of  God  ",  he  says  that  he  believes 
it  unattainable  in  this  life,  and  quite  beyond  his  own  reach. ^ 
In  another  matter  Bernard's  caution  is  noticeable  and 
becomes  even  timidity.  His  position  in  time  was  just  be- 
tween the  early  speculative  mystics  and  the  body  of  con- 
structive scholastics  who  were  to  find  mysticism — in  even 
some  of  its  most  daring  manifestations,  when  founded  on 
a  true  experience — a  place  within  the  Catholic  system. 
Bernard,  prompted  and  harassed  by  his  long  controversy 
with  Abelard,  the  dry  and  acute  logician,  was  inclined  to 
give  Reason  a  very  subsidiary  place  in  his  theology.  "  Credo 
ut  intelligam  "  was  his  motto,  and  his  was  the  famous 
definition  of  Faith,  "  Fides  est  voluntaria  quaedam  et 
certa    praelibatio    necdum    propalatae    veritatis ".  ^     But, 

^  "  Let  them  talk  of  it  who  have  experienced  it,  to  myself  I  con- 
fess it  seems  impossible  ".  De  diligendo  Deo,  XV.  ;  and  cf.  Vaughan  : 
Hours  with  the  Mystics,  Bk.  v.  Ch.  i. 

^  "  Faith  is  a  kind  of  \'oluntary  certitude  and  foretaste  of  verities 
not  yet  open  to  demonstration." 


104  THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

as  has  been  well  observed,  Bernard's  "  fides  "  was  "  no 
indolent  or  constrained  reception  of  a  formula  ",  but  "  the 
divine  persuasion  of  the  pure  in  heart  and  life  ". 

St.  Bernard  had  shown]  by  his  life  of  incessant  activity 
and  his  wide-spread  influence  that  the  mystic's  tempera- 
ment is  not  incompatible  with  a  very  shrewd  and  capable 
grasp  on  worldly  affairs  :  not  less  practical  in  the  intellec- 
cual  province  was  the  work  of  the  great  chain  of  scholastic 
mystics  beginning  with  the  Victorines  of  the  twelfth  century 
and  ending  with  Gerson  in  the  fifteenth.  Though  at  times 
one  feels  that  it  is  the  careful  tabulations  of  the  soul's 
deepest  experiences  rather  than  those  experiences  themselves 
which  were  the  schoolmen's  main  preoccupation,  their 
importance  in  the  history  of  Mysticism — for  the  matter  of 
that,  of  psychology — cannot  be  over-rated.  For  one  thing, 
the  notion  that  Mysticism  and  Scholasticism  were  by  their 
nature  in  inveterate  opposition  may  be  at  once  dismissed. 
To  take  two  great  representative  leaders  of  the  twin  schools 
of  thought,  Dionysius  and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  ;  Corderius, 
the  seventeenth  century  translator  of  the  former,  gives 
several  folio  pages  of  Aquinas'  quotations  from  his  author 
and  even  calls  Dionysius  the  founder  of  the  scholastic 
method ;  Hugo  of  St.  Victor  and  Albertus  Magnus  wrote 
commentaries  on  him,  and  aU  the  famous  scholastics  refer 
constantly  to  him.  The  mystics,  in  fact,  were  the  adven- 
turous mariners  on  unknown  seas  of  spiritual  experience; 
the  scholastics,  following  at  times  in  their  actual  wake,  were 
the  chartists  of  their  explorations.  During  the  three  cen- 
turies in  which  they  worked,  they  were  useful  also,  as  carto- 
graphers, in  another  way.  Up  and  down  these  unknown 
seas  there  were  rocks  where  souls  might  find,  and  did  find, 
shipwreck,  and  in  them  there  were  dangerous  shoals  and 
from  them  blind  alleys.  At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  men  like  Amalric  of  Bena  and  David  of  Dinant 
were  picking  up  and  teaching  the  most  pantheistic  of  Eri- 


THE  BEGUINAGES  105 

gena's  speculations,  coupled  with  smatterings  from  Aristotle 
as  interpreted  by  Arabian  commentators. ^  Later  on, 
Ortlieb  of  Strassbourg  started  a"  Sect  of  the  New  Spirit," 
one  of  the  first  of  many  "  brotherhood  groups  "  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  who  mostly  had  their  habitat,  or  Meandered 
to  and  fro,  in  the  Rhine  valley.  Of  these  "  Brethren  of 
the  Free  Spirit  ",  and  their  Hke,  we  shall  hear  again  when 
we  come  to  consider  the  German  School  of  mystics  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  One  of  their  chief  ramifications,  the 
societies  of  Beghards  (men)  and  Beguines  (women),  the 
latter  of  whom,  in  ordered  and  modified  form,  still  carry  on 
their  good  work  in  Flanders,  arose  indirectly  from  the  Cru- 
sades, The  losses  of  life  in  these  expeditions  left  large 
numbers  of  women,  widows  and  daughters  of  the  slain, 
without  protection.  About  1180,  a  priest  of  Liege,  Lambert 
le  Begue  ("  the  Stammerer  ")  began  to  busy  himself  in 
the  good  work  of  forming  communities  of  these  needy 
women,  who,  subsisting  largely  on  charity,  might  tend  the 
sick,  the  aged,  and  the  poor,  around  them.  Some  of 
these  Beguines  were  well-to-do  ladies,  who  entered  the 
community  to  live  "  the  simple  life  ".  Others  were  poor 
folk  whose  settlements  were  supported  by  rich  patrons,  and 
indeed,  an  extraordinary  amount  of  gifts  was  lavished  on 
this  form  of  the  religious  life,  the  Counts  of  Flanders  being 
specially  devoted  to  the  Beguinages.  A  third  class  of 
Beguines  was  composed  of  the  actually  poor,  who  had  to 
beg  to  support  themselves.  In  fact,  the  begging  became 
a  great  nuisance  later  on,  and  was  condemned  more  than 
once  by  the  religious  authorities.  The  cult  of  Poverty  was 
widely  and  enthusiastically  followed  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  but   then  it  was  supposed  to  go  with 

^  The  first  collection  of  Aristotle's  works  that  came  into  Europe 
was  a  Latin  translation  from  the  Arabic  :  and  some  of  the  Arabian 
commentaries  on  Aristotle,  strongly  tinged  with  Neo-Platonism, 
were  at  first  behaved  to  be  Aristotle's  own  work. 


io6     THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

some  recognized  discipline  and  rule,  and  part  of  the  attrac- 
tion of  the  Beguines'  really  devoted  life  lay  in  its  lack  of 
exact  rule,  and  binding  vows.  Much  more  was  this  the 
case  with  the  Beghards/  who,  imitating  the  women's 
example,  began  their  career  in  Louvain  in  1220.  They 
however,  wandered  far  more  about  the  country  than  their 
sisters,  being  known  widely  as  "  poor  men  "  and  "  apostohc 
men  ",  and  in  addition  to  the  tending  of  the  sick  and  some- 
times, as  in  Frankfort,  the  insane,  and  burying  the  dead, 
they  taught  and  preached.  Unfortunately,  this  teaching, 
by  the  fourteenth  century,  began  everywhere  to  show 
signs  of  an  undiluted  Pantheism,  v/ith  two  concomitants, 
harmful  alike  to  religion  and  to  morals.  One  was  that  the 
man  guided  by  the  Spirit,  in  whose  special  age  or  dispensa- 
tion many  of  these  "  brethren "  believed  themselves  to 
live,''  was  above  any  further  attention  to  outward  forms, 
sacraments  or  ceremonies  ;  the  other  that,  being  fiUed  with 
the  Spirit,  any  and  every  urgent  impulse  in  him  was  Divine. 
Pure  Pantheism  always  leads  in  the  direction  of  Libertinism 
by  blurring  necessarily  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong ;  when  a  man  believes  himself  to  be  in  some  reahn 
of  the  Spirit,  beyond  law,  a  "  perfect  soul  "  that  has  risen 
above  the  practice  of  virtues  and  is  on  the  way  to  becoming 
identified  with  the  Divine  Allness  that  fiUs  him,  there  is  no 
possible  check  to  his  actions.  This  "  heresy  of  the  Free 
Spirit  "  was  condemned  by  the  Council  of  Vienne  in  1311, 

1  Some  have  thought  that  the  words  "  Beghards  ",  "  Beguines  ", 
were  derived  from  the  Flemish  verb  "  beggen  ",  "  to  beg  ",  or  possibly 
to  "  pray  hard".  But  there  is  now  little  doubt  that  the  Beguines 
derived  their  name  from  their  founder,  Lambert  le  Begue,  and  that, 
if  anything,  the  verb  "  to  beg  "  came  from  the  name  "  Bdguine  " 
instead  of  the  other  way  about. 

2  This  behef  dated  itself  from  the  teaching  of  Joachim,  Abbot 
of  Floris  in  Calabria,  who  taught,  during  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century,  that  the  Dispensation  of  the  "  Eternal  Gospel ",  the  reign 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  had  arrived. 


SCHOLASTICISM  AND  MYSTICISM  107 

but  it  was  enormously  spread  in  Western  Europe  by  that 
time.  The  curious  thing  is  that  the  abstract  nature  of  some 
of  its  doctrines  concerning  the  "  indeterminate  Absolute  " 
should  have  been  so  popular.  For  that  such  teaching  was 
popular  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Eckhart  and  Tauler  both 
had  to  preach  again  and  again  against  its  exaggerations, 
and  the  great  scholastics  made  it  part  of  their  task  to  com- 
bat this  spurious  mysticism  wherever  they  found  it.  At 
one  time  it  is  Albert  the  Great  who  condemns  David  of 
Dinant  for  holding  that  God,  intelhgence,  and  matter  are 
all  one  in  essence,  and  unite  in  a  single  substance  ;  at 
another,  Aquinas,  his  pupil,  echoes  the  condemnation  of 
David's  doctrine  that  everything  in  the  universe  is  a  single 
thing,  essentially  one.  Again,  Gerson  accuses  Amalric  of 
Bena  of  teaching  that  the  creature  is  changed  into  God, 
and,  sloughing  off  his  own  nature,  no  more  sees  and  loves 
God  as  somewhat  beyond  himself  but  actually  becomes 
God  ;  and  that  this  unity  even  on  earth  is  so  perfect  that 
there  is  no  further  place  for  Baptism,  confession,  the  Eucha- 
rist ;  no  further  need  of  a  mediator  between  God  and  man. 
It  was  well  that  such  doctrines  were  detected,  exposed, 
and  confuted,  though  the  medieval  mind,  to  which  the 
Church  was  an  imperium  and  heresy  a  dangerous  treachery 
to  the  spiritual  nation,  could  not  stop  there,  but  proceeded 
to  its  terrible  logical  conclusion  of  persecution  by  fire  and 
sword. 

Such  was  one  part  of  the  schoolmen's  service  to  Mysticism 
— the  rooting  out  of  what  was  false  and  harmful  in  mystical 
speculation.  But  the  greater  and  nobler  part  of  their 
work  was  constructive,  the  reconciliation  and  incorporation 
of  a  true  mysticism,  in  all  its  wealth  of  reHgious  psychology, 
with  the  systematic  theology  of  the  Church. 

The  famous  abbey  of  St.  Victor,  near  Paris,  was  founded 
by  William  of  Champeaux  about  iioo,  and  speedily  became 
known  as  an  abode  of  learning  and  of  holiness.     Hugo  of 


io8     THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

St.  Victor  joined  the  community  in  early  manhood  and 
passed  his  hfe  there,  dying  early  in  his  forty-fifth  year,  but 
not  without  laying  foundations  for  the  thought  of  his  suc- 
cessors. The  Church  had  to  solve  the  problem  of  checking 
the  errors  while  encouraging  the  love  and  faith  of  the 
mystics.  Hugo's  contribution  to  the  solution  was  a  three- 
fold division  of  the  faculties  of  the  self.  "  The  way  to 
ascend  to  Gud '  ,  he  said,  "is  to  descend  into  oneself"; 
and  indeed,  the  Victorine  school  was  always  much  less  meta- 
ph^^sical  than  ps^^chological  in  its  processes.  Hugo's  three- 
fold division  was,  first  and  lowest.  Cogitation ;  then,  Medi- 
tation ;  highest  of  all,  Contemplation.  This  last,  however, 
has  two  stages,  Speculation,  which  is  the  beginning  of  that 
final  illumination  whereby  all  things  are  seen  in  God,  and 
Intuition,  .vherein  the  soul  gains  immediate  apprehension 
of  the  Infinite.  Hugo  is  responsible  also  for  the  doctrine 
of  the  three  "  eyes  "  of  man ;  by  understanding  this  we 
understand  also  the  difficulty  of  the  religious  life.  For 
only  the  "  eye  of  flesh  "  remains  intact ;  that  of  "  reason  ", 
whereby  we  see  ourselves,  has  been  injured  by  sin ;  that 
of  "  contemplation  ",  whereby  we  ought  to  be  able  to  see 
God  in  ourselves,  has  been  blinded  by  sin.^ 

Richard  of  St.  Victor,  Hugo's  pupil  and  successor,  was 
a  practical  mystic  in  more  ways  than  one.  He  was  an 
ardent  reformer  of  the  ecclesiastical  abuses  of  his  time. 
In  his  writings,  his  weakness  lay  in  his  proneness,  like  St. 
Bernard,  to  weave  endless  allegories  out  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writings.  His  psychology  is  more  complex  than  that 
of  Hugo.  He  divides  contemplation  into  six  instead  of  two 
stages.  We  need  not  trace  their  cumbrous  Latin  phrase- 
ology ;  2  it  may  suffice  that  the  first  two  have  to  do  with 

^  For  the  Victorines  see  Vaughan  :  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  Bk. 
V.  Ch.  2;  and  cf.  Inge:    op.  cit.  p.  140-2. 

^  The  six  stages  are  given  in  full  in  Vaughan,  op  cit.  Bk.  V,  Ch.  2, 
note  13. 


THE   SCHOOLMEN  109 

Imagination  ;  the  second  two  with  Reason ;  the  last  two 
v^ith  "  Intelligence".  Predisposing  conditions  for  the  third 
stage,  above  Reason,  are  devotion,  admiration,  and  joy  : 
the  Victorines  always  insist  on  the  preparation  of  the  soul 
by  a  pure  and  holy  life.  "  Let  him  that  thirsts  to  see  God 
cleanse  his  mirror ",  says  Richard.  What  makes  Richard 
important  is  the  re-emergence  in  his  teaching  of  the  Ecstasy, 
on  which  he  lays  the  fullest  emphasis,  and  which  he  reckon^ 
as  a  supernatural  gift,  or  infusion,  beyond  Reason.  "  Rea- 
son dies  in  giving  birth  to  Ecstasy  ".*  He  is  careful 
to  say  that  in  vision  "  the  transfigured  Christ  must  be 
accompanied  by  Moses  and  Elias  ",  that  is,  there  must  be 
nothing  conflicting  with  law  and  authority  in  the  com- 
munication which  the  soul  receives  and  its  after  effect. 
But  Dr.  Inge  reckons  that  it  is  to  St.  Richard  in  chief  that 
the  opposition  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural, 
which  grew  up  in  Catholic  Mysticism,  is  due. 

There  were  other  scholastic  mystics  to  whom  Mysticism 
owed  ideas  or  doctrines  of  importance,  Albertus  (1193- 
1280),  to  whom  his  age  gave  the  title  "  Magnus  ",  taught 
in  the  "  High  Schoolj"  of  Cologne,  where  one  of  his  pupils 
was  the  famous  Thomas  Aquinas.  In  his  treatise,  De 
Adhaerendo  Deo,  Albertus  developed  the  meaning  of  the 
words  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  "  God  is  a  Spirit ",  and  laid 
down,  as  necessary  for  the  highest  attainment  of  the  soul's 
contemplation,  the  Via  Negativa.  "  When  thou  prayest, 
shut  thy  door — that  is,  the  door  of  thy  senses.  Keep  them 
barred,  and  bolted  against  aU  images.  .  .  .  Let  naught 
come  between  thee  and  God.  .  .  .  When  we  proceed  to 
God  by  the  way  of  abstraction,  we  deny  to  Him,  first  of 
all,  bodily  and  sensible  attributes,  then  intelligible  quaUties, 
and  lastly  that  esse  which  would  keep  Him  amid  created 
things  ". 

With  Bonaventura  ^1221-1274)  union  with  God  is  repre- 
^  Cf.  Sharpe :    Mysticism  :   Its  True  Nature  and  Value,  Ch,  III. 


no     THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

sented  as  an  immense  series  of  stages  in  ascent.  The  final 
stage  is  only  to  be  entered  upon  by  the  soul's  passivity 
and  nakedness — it  is  that  of  the  Divine  darkness,  the  dark- 
ness of  excess  of  light.  Yet,  though  one  of  the  most  formal 
of  mystics,  St.  Bonaventura  lives  on  in  certain  wonderful 
sentences,  as  is  the  way  with  many  of  his  kind.  The  seem- 
ingly dull  page  is  suddenly  streaked  with  light.  Thus, 
"  God's  Centre  is  everywhere.  His  circumference  nowhere  ". 
He  is  "  totum  intra  omnia,  et  totum  extra  ",  a  fine  expres- 
sion of  Divine  Immanence  and  Transcendence  ;  He  is  the 
Trinity  in  Unity,  since  the  "  summum  bonum  "  must  by 
nature  be  "  summe  diffusivum  sui  ".^  And  if  we  would 
know  the  highest  vision,  we  must  "  ask  it  of  grace,  not  of 
doctrine  ;  of  desire,  not  of  the  intellect ;  of  the  ardours 
of  prayer,  not  of  the  teaching  of  its  schools  ;  of  the  Bride- 
groom, not  of  the  Master  ".^  This  is,  indeed,  worthy  of  a 
disciple  of  St.  Francis. 

Finally,  there  is  Jean  Gerson,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
University  of  Paris  (1363-1429),  scarcely  a  mystic  at  all, 
"  who  has  no  exaltations  or  visions  of  his  own  to  tell  of, 
but  is  more  persistent  than  any  one  else  in  drawing  up  a 
scheme  of  the  mystical  life,  a  ground-plan  in  black  and 
white,  accurately  measured,  of  the  spiritual  temple.  Mystical 
theology,  with  him,  must  rest  on  the  negative  process,  and 
he  characterizes  the  mystical  revelation  as  having  the 
quality  or  sensation  of  certainty,  therein  anticipating  modern 
analysis.  He  is,  perhaps,  mainly  interesting  because  he 
gives  to  each  department  of  illumination — to  the  spirit, 
the  reason,  and  the  senses — an"  affective  faculty",  a  point 
of  contact  or  receptivity  in  the  self.  This  point  of  contact 
in  the  case  of  mystical  vision  is  "  synteresis  ",  a  curious  word 
which  corresponds  to  what  other  mystics  called  the  "  Divine 

^  Quoted  from  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  p.   146. 
^  See  E..  Underbill,  Mysticism,  p.  148, 


CONTRASTS   IN  MEDIEVALISM  iii 

spark  "  in  the  soul,  or  the  "  apex  "  of  the  soul.  Bona- 
ventura,  Albertus  Magnus,  and  Thomas  Aquinas  also  made 
use  of  the  word,  and  we  shall  see  that  Eckhart,  at  the  head 
of  the  German  school,  built  a  good  deal  of  his  doctrine  upon 
it.  It  is  "  an  intuitive  faculty,  above  the  reasoning  faculty 
— a  power  of  the  mind  for  receiving  truth  immediately 
from  God  ". 

We  have  gone  too  far  forward  in  the  endeavour  to  group 
the  great  analytical  theologians  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
shall  have  to  retrace  our  steps.  Nevertheless,  there  is 
that  in  Gerson's  own  life  which  gives  us  the  connecting  link 
of  thought  with  what  will  follow.  Dry  writer,  uncom- 
promising and  even  fierce  Churchman  as  at  times  he  was 
(he  urged  the  death  of  Hus  at  the  Council  of  Constance), 
there  was  in  him  a  deep  core  of  tenderness.  The  contrasts 
of  Medievalism  seem  to  come  out  in  him.  This  inveterate 
systematiser  and  stern  scholastic  has  been,  as  is  well  known, 
suspected  of  writing  the  "  Imitation  of  Christ  "  ;  in  any 
case  he  was  eager  to  feel  the  life  of  the  people  as  well  as  the 
atmosphere  of  an  University.  So  he  took  a  cure  of  souls 
in  Bruges  in  addition  to  his  professorial  work,  that  he 
might  know  the  practical  experience  of  a  parish  priest : 
he  wrote  in  the  vernacular  and  in  the  simplest  words  little 
tracts  on  the  truths  of  religion,  such  as  the  treatise,  "  De 
scavoir  bien  mourir.",  much  used  in  parish  churches,  and 
"  L'A.B.C.  des  simples  gens ".  Hence  he  was  lovingly 
called  "  le  Docteur  du  peuple  et  le  Docteur  des  petits  en- 
fants."  1  As  he  lay  dying,  in  exile  at  Lyons  for  righteous- 
ness' sake,  a  band  of  children  crowded  around  to  hear  his 
last  words  of  counsel  and  to  pray  "  for  our  dear  father, 
Jean  Gerson". 

All  through  the  later  Middle  Ages,  despite  very  much 
that  was  of  evil  omen  in  Church  Ufe,  formaUty  in  religious 

^  See  J,  E.  G.  de  Montmorency.     Thomas  d  Kempis,  p.  22. 


112   THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

observance,  worldliness,  luxury,  or  cruelty  in  high  places, 
this  spirit  of  a  primitive  childlikeness,  exquisitely  tender 
and  winning,  makes  itself  seen  and  heard.  Often  it  takes 
the  form  of  some  legend,  of  infinite  grace  and  meaning, 
repeated  mysteriously  from  mouth  to  mouth,  as  when  the 
story  of  the  Holy  Graal  was  told,  and,  under  varying  forms, 
but  always  mth  its  significance  of  a  high  Quest  and  Adven- 
ture after  Christ,  became  to  countless  hearts  a  Gospel  within 
the  Gospel.  Often  again  it  issues  in  splendid  deeds  or  life- 
times of  self-surrender,  such  as  the  strange  Cult  of  Poverty, 
wliich,  coupled  with  the  care  of  the  sick  and  dying,  became 
a  generous  passion  in  the  Low  Countries  and  the  Rhine- 
land  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries. 

Whence  did  aU  this  arise  ?  the  Vision  that  so  many  men 
saw,  the  practical  mysticism  of  daily  service  to  which  so 
many  gave  themselves  ?  The  Crusades  were  in  part  the 
cause  of  the  deepening  and  strengthening  of  this  fervour, 
but  the  Crusades  would  have  been  impossible  had  not  the 
essentials  of  this  spiritual  chivalry  already  existed,  and 
the  Crusades  were  not  spotless  enterprises,  and  left  many 
wounds  to  heal. 

The  causes  were  surely  a  doctrine,  and  a  man. 

(i)  The  doctrine  was  the  behef,  almost  universal  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  if  we  except  a  few  obscure  sects,  in  the  Mystery 
of  the  Mass.  "It  is  the  Mass  that  matters  ",  says  Mr. 
Birrell  somewhere,  and  certainly  it  was  the  Mass  that 
mattered  to  medieval  Europe.  The  doctrine  concerning 
the  Eucharist  began  to  harden  during  the  age  of  Charle- 
magne, but  when  the  dogma  of  Transubstantiation  was 
defined  by  the  fourth  Lateran  Council  in  1215,  it  was  only 
the  summing  up,  with  the  remorseless  logic  of  the  West  and 
according  to  the  philosophy  of  the  period,  of  the  long  and 
eager  controversies,  and  stiU  more  the  unwavering  popular 
prepossession,  of  centuries.  But  more  than  this ;  the 
Lateran  Council,  in  its  emphasis  on  the  tremendous  reality 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  THE  MASS  113 

underlying  the  Holy  Sacrament,  expressed  a  debt  of  grati- 
tude on  the  part  of  the  Church.  To  "  the  belief  in  the  real 
presence  of  the  King  of  kings  in  the  consecrated  wafer  and 
in  the  power  mysteriously  given  by  the  imposition  of  hands 
to  the  humblest  priest  to  work  this  stupendous  miracle  " 
had  been  due  more  than  to  any  other  force  the  conquest 
and  taming  of  the  barbarian  nations  by  the  Church.  "  \Vhat- 
ever  be  its  theological  truth  ",  says  Dr.  Workman,  "  it  must 
be  confessed  that  the  medieval  doctrine  of  the  Sacrament 
had  accomplished  wonders  for  civiHzation  where  a  more 
spiritual  conception  might  have  failed  ".^  While  Radbert 
and  Ratramn  and  Rabanus  had  argued  and  discussed  in 
the  ninth  century,  and  Berengar  and  Lanfranc  in  the  tenth, 
there  beat  beneath  all  arid  dispute  and  definition  the  pulse 
of  a  vast  awe  and  faith  in  the  Mystery  enthroned  on  every 
Altar.  Perhaps  nothing  else  would  have  kept  in  any  sort 
of  check  the  welter  of  violence,  fraud  and  cruelty  that  too 
often  surged  up  within  the  outward  show  of  Christianity. 
Rossetti's  picturesque  phrase,  "  High  do  the  bells  of  Rouen 
beat,  when  the  Body  of  Christ  goes  down  the  street "  gives 
us,  in  one  stroke  of  colour  and  sound,  the  medieval  concep- 
tion of  the  great  Sign  which,  wherever  it  was  upheld  or 
carried,  brought  hope  to  the  helpless  sick,  truce  to  the  fray, 
asylum  to  the  refugee,  and  its  Viaticum  to  the  parting  soul. 
When  around  the  Mystery  there  began  to  cluster  the  hues 
of  spiritual  romance  which  the  Crusades  in  their  longing 
touch  on  the  far-away  land  of  the  Last  Supper  brought  to 
it,  and  of  which  the  mysterious  relics  of  the  Blood  in  Bruges 
and  Hailes  were  witnesses,  what  wonder  that  some  great 
legend  hke  that  of  the  Graal  should  arise,  in  which  belief 
in  the  Mass,  and  yet  of  a  Mystery  within  and  beyond  the 
Mass,  the  rumour  of  a  Quest,  the  unsatisfied  desire  of  the 
human  soul  for  That  Which  the  most  august  Sacrament 
could  only  symbohze,  should  all  find  expression  ? 

^  Christian  Thought  to  the  Reformation,  p.  146. 
M.C.  I 


114     THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

(2)  What  was  needed  still  was  something  Hke  a  Life  that 
should  correspond  to  this  enthusiastic  veneration  for  its 
sacramental  expression.  That  such  a  Ufe — in  truth  a  rever- 
sion to  the  Christ  type — did  actually  begin  to  lift  itself  and 
spread  its  beautiful  influence,  an  influence  still  felt,  in  the 
cities  and  lanes  of  thirteenth  century  Europe,  was  due  to 
one  great  saint  above  all  others,  Francis  of  A=;sisi. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  sketch  again  a  life  which  has  been 
written  and  re-written  so  often  and  so  well.     It  may  be  said, 
however,  that,  despite  aU  after  efforts,  capable  and  S3nTipa- 
thetic  as  many  of  them  are,  the  "  Fioretti  "  still  holds  its 
indisputable  pre-eminence  as  the  source  whence  we  may 
win  the  actual  fragrance,  the  first  childhke  freshness  and 
joy  of  the  Franciscan  ideal.     Many  times  has  the  cry,  "  Back 
to  Christ  !  "  been  raised,  but  no  one  ever  came  more  closely 
to  the  Galilean  ministry  of  love,  its  hand  of  helpfulness  for 
all  in  distress,  its  simple  hold  on  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
than  Francis  of  Assisi.     Born  in  11 82,  the  true  spiritual 
life  of  the  thirteenth  century,  especially  among   the  poor, 
the  sick  and  the  outcast,  largely  owed  itself  to  him  ;  and 
from  his  simple  following  of  the  Saviour  a  vast  missionary 
movement,  that  of  the  Friars,  radiated  far  and  wide.     Let 
us  recall  the  chief  notes  in  St.  Francis'  mysticism,  one  or 
two  of  them  wonderfully  new  and  clear  to  the  age  in  which 
he  lived.     There  was  first  the  personal  attachment  to  his 
Lord,  Whom  he  saw  not  "  coming  in  the  clouds  "  of  dogma, 
nor  even  only  as  a  sacramental  Presence,  but  as  a  vivid 
Reahty  in  the  paths  of  the  world.     He  was  praying,  a  young 
man  of  twenty-two,  before   the  Httle  altar  of  St.  Damian, 
near  Assisi,  when,  so  Bonaventura  his  biographer  teUs  us, 
he  found  that  he  could  not  take  his  eyes  from  those  of  the 
Image  on  the  Crucifix.     They  seemed  to  bum  into  his  soul, 
and  to  ask  for  his  life.     The  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  had  become 
for   him    alive    again.     Therefore    he    wedded    "  his    lady 
Poverty  "  and,  much  to  the  wrath  of  his  father,  a  rich  mer- 


ST.   FRANCIS  OF  ASSISI  115 

chant,  went  out  into  the  world  a  poor  man.  One  of  his 
first  acts  was  to  range  himself  with  a  line  of  outcast  beggars 
in  Rome,  and  next  (we  cannot  doubt  with  the  passage  of 
St.  Matthew  viii.  in  his  mind)  he  kissed  a  leper  by  the  way- 
side. One  day,  soon  afterwards,  he  heard  a  priest  at  Mass 
read  the  Gospel  which  contained  our  Lord's  commission, 
"  Preach,  saying,  *  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand.  Heal 
the  sick,  cleanse  the  lepers.  .  .  .  Provide  neither  silver 
nor  gold  in  your  purses  '."  The  words  sounded  to  him,  as 
those  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  to  St.  Augustine,  like 
an  imperious  command.  Henceforth  this  was  his  life  and 
the  life  of  his  followers,  the  Friars  Minor.  Pope  Innocent 
III.  allowed  their  rule — the  apostolic  life — in  12 10,  and  in 
1212  the  Second  Order  for  women  came  into  being,  named, 
after  its  foundress,  the  Poor  Clares.  More  significant  still 
was  the  formation,  forced  on  St.  Francis  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  eager  crowds  who  hung  upon  his  teaching,  of  a  Third 
Order,  the  Tertiaries,  who  were  vowed  to  live  the  gospel 
life  of  unselfishness,  love,  and  devotion  in  their  own  homes 
and  in  the  world.  Now  we  can  understand  the  spread  of 
the  enthusiastic  cult  of  Poverty  already  noticed,  and  the 
restless  yearning  of  the  manifold  groups  of  men  and  women 
whose  movements  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centu- 
ries we  can  dimly  discern,  after  a  more  primitive  faith  and 
practice.  For  the  spirit  of  Francis  spread  far  and  wide. 
In  Francis  himself  we  see  two  developments  of  the  mystic 
sense  very  rare  in  his  age.  One  was  his  recognition  of  God 
in  the  beauties  and  wonders  of  Nature.  He  preaches  to 
the  birds  and  the  fishes  ;  the  sun  is  his  brother,  the  trees 
and  flowers  are  his  sisters.  To  this  love  of  Nature  the  close, 
attentive  following  of  the  Master  of  Galilee  had  led  him, 
and  it  led  him,  unconsciously,  for  Francis  was  no  theologian, 
into  the  path  of  safety.  Man  and  Nature  are  to  him  brother 
and  sister,  indeed,  he  is  often  playful  with  Nature  as  with 
a  little  sister,  for  Man  is  higher  and  holier  in  destiny  than 


ii6     THREE  TYPES  OF  MEDIEVAL  MYSTICISM 

Nature.  There  is  no  temptation  to  Pantheism,  to  shut  up 
God  in  Nature,  of  which  man  is  a  segment,  to  translate  the 
whole  Being  of  God  from  the  hints,  sometimes  to  us  con- 
fused and  contradictory,  given  us  by  Nature.  The  soul 
of  man,  as  redeemed,  is,  after  aU,  the  greater  hieroglyphic 
of  God.  Then,  again,  as  directly  caught  from  the  early 
days  of  Galilee,  there  is  Francis'  joy.  Whatever  his  circum- 
stances, of  outward  hardship  or  of  bodily  pain,  that  fountain 
of  radiant  joy  never  failed  him,  and,  in  the  dark  times  of 
the  Italy  in  which  he  worked,  was  an  infectious  means  of 
his  influence. 

Several  of  his  followers  showed  very  beautifully  these 
special  characteristics  of  St.  Francis.  There  was  St.  Douce- 
line,  a  lady  of  Genoa,  who  joined  the  Beguines  of  her  neigh- 
bourhood ,and  whom  the  song  of  a  bird,  or  the  beauty  of  a 
flower  "  drew  straightway  to  God  ",  just  as  Francis  once 
ordered  a  bed  of  flowers  to  be  laid  out  "  that  all  who  beheld 
them  might  remember  the  Eternal  Sweetness  ".^  There 
was  Jacopone  da  Todi,  the  converted  lawyer,  who  turned 
poet  of  the  infinite  light  and  joy,  and  became,  like  his  master, 
"  a  troubadour  of  God  "  ;  and  St.  Bonaventura  himself, 
the  great  scholastic  mystic,  was  a  disciple  of  Francis. 

It  may  be  wondered  at  that  in  one  chapter,  there  should 
be  grouped  together  three  such  different  types  of  the  mystical 
life.  The  answer  is  that  each  type  was,  for  the  age,  a 
practical  type,  and  that  only  in  considering  the  three  types 
together  can  the  rehgious  Hfe  of  the  Lliddle  Ages  be  really 
understood  and  summed  up.  ?  The  mystic  who  was  a  states- 
man, a  reformer,  and  a  man  of  affairs ;  "^  the  mystics  who 
were  masters  in  the  schools  of  thought ;  ^Hhe  mystics  who 
revived  the  Gospel  ideal  of  succour  to  the  sick  and  sorrowful, 
and  mission  to  the  outcast,  all  of  these  rendered  practical 
service  to  their  times  ;   and,  at  least,  it  speaks  volumes  for 

^  Thomas  of  Celano  :    Legenda  Secunda,  cap.  cxxiv. 


THE  THREE  TYPES  117 

the  Medieval  Church  that,  whether  amongst  the  statesmen, 
or  the  thinkers,  or  the  free  lances  in  its  ranks,  it  knew  a 
saint  when  it  saw  one.  The  slow  judgement  of  centuries 
has  confirmed,  or  is  in  process  of  confirming,  the  verdict 
passed  on  the  life  and  work,  whether  of  Bernard,  or  of 
Aquinas,  or  of  Francis  ;  and  Mysticism,  felt  as  a  living 
force  once  again  after  years  of  neglect,  is  glad  to  find,  by 
the  example  of  St.  Bernard,  that  the  busy  round  of  affairs 
may  be  followed  under  the  unwavering  Hght  of  the  Divine 
Presence  ;  that  the  labours  of  the  great  scholastics  secured 
for  its  highest  and  dearest  aspirations  a  home  within  the 
Church ;  and  that,  as  St.  Francis  showed,  the  abiding 
Christ  still  walks  with  those  who  joy  in  Nature  and  in  simple 
things  and  serve  His  sick  and  poor. 


CHAPTER    VII 

The  German  Mystics  of  the  Middle  Ages 

THE  great  German  school  of  Mysticism  of  the  four- 
teenth century — one  of  the  landmarks  in  m3'stical 
history — which  later  ramified  northwards  into  the  Low 
Countries,  and  had  no  inconsiderable  share  in  preparing 
the  way  for  the  Reformation,  was  heralded  by  a  remarkable 
group  of  women  saints  and  mystics.  From  the  seclusion  of 
convent  walls  they  influenced  the  life  of  their  times  pro- 
foundly as  prophetesses  and  reformers.  Thus  the  letters 
of  St.  Hildegarde  (1098-1179)  condemning  the  abuses  of 
the  Christian  world  around  her,  intensely  Teutonic  in  their 
minghng  of  poetic  visionariness  and  practical  plain-speaking, 
were  passed  from  hand  to  hand  throughout  Germany ; 
and  in  the  next  century  four  Benedictine  nuns,  of  the  con- 
vent of  Helfde,  have  left  writings  that  are  still  studied. 
First  came  the  Abbess  Gertrude  and  her  sister  St.  Mechthild 
(Matilda)  of  Hackborn  ;  then  another  and  greater  pair, 
puzzhngly  enough  of  the  same  names,  St.  Gertrude  the 
Great  and  Mechthild  of  Magdebourg,  so  called  because 
before  coming  to  Helfde  she  was  first  of  all  a  Magdebourg 
Beguine.  With  regard  to  St.  Gertrude  and  Mechthild  of 
Hackborn,  Miss  UnderhiU  thinks  that  the  former  was  a 
"  characteristic  Cathohc  visionary  of  the  feminine  type ; 
absorbed  in  her  subjective  experience  .  .  .  her  loving  con- 
versations with  Christ  and  the  Blessed  Virgin  ",  the  latter's 

lis 


ECKHART  119 

"  attitude  as  a  whole  is  more  impersonal  .  .  .  the  great 
symbolic  visions  in  which  her  most  spiritual  perceptions 
are  expressed  are  artistic  creations  .  .  .  and  dwell  Uttle 
upon  the  humanity  of  Christ  ".^  Mechthild  of  Magdebourg 
wrote  a  book  called  "  The  Flowing  Light  of  the  Godhead." 
She  was  the  poetess  of  the  group,  and  her  works  were  read 
by  Dante  in  a  Latin  translation,  and  are  thought  to  have 
influenced  the  "  Paradiso  ". 

It  is  one  of  the  old  scribes  who  penned  a  couplet  about 
"  Meister  Eckhart,  from  whom  God  kept  nothing  hid", 
and  it  has  been  truly  said  by  a  modern  writer  that  "  one 
soon  finds  he  cannot  touch  the  surface  of  fourteenth 
century  Mysticism  in  Germany  without  making  up  accounts 
with  Eckhart  ".  He  was,  indeed,  one  of  those  extraordinary 
persons  in  whom  two  ages  seem  to  meet,  and  who  sum  up 
in  themselves  and  their  teaching  qualities  seemingly  the 
most  contradictory.  Thus,  he  had  absorbed  the  theology 
of  Augustine,  Dionysius,  and  Erigena,  and  was  the  pupil  of 
Thomas  Aquinas,  and  through  him  of  Albertus  Magnus. 
Yet,  inheritor  of  the  past  as  he  was,  he  pointed  the  way  to 
the  German  philosophy  of  the  future.  A  mystic  of  mystics, 
reveUing  in  abstractions,  he  yet  thought  so  much  of  prac- 
tical Christianity  that  he  ranked  Martha  above  Mary  in 
the  scale  of  perfection,  and  taught  that  "  even  were  one  in 
a  rapture  hke  Paul's,  and  there  were  a  sick  man  needing 
help,  it  would  be  far  better  to  come  out  of  the  rapture  and 
show  love  by  serving  the  needy  one  ".  It  is  hard  to  imagine 
more  difficult  subjects  or  more  abstruse  philosophy  than 
those  of  Eckhart 's  sermons,  yet  both  at  Cologne  and  Strass- 
bourg  those  sermons  were  eagerly  listened  to  by  enormous 
crowds.  A  great  deal  of  credit  must  be  given  to  the  general 
level  of  inteUigence  in  fourteenth  century  audiences,  and, 
perhaps,  some  regret  may  be  felt  at  the  obvious  modem 
lapse  from  this  standard  ;  yet  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
*  Underbill,  Mysticism,  p.  548. 


-120    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

Eckhart  had  a  singular  gift  of  clothing  his  philosophy  in 
striking  epigrams.  Also,  he  was  apt  to  deal  in  rather  dan- 
gerous speculations,  twenty-eight  of  which  were  afterwards 
condemned  by  the  Church,  and  the  Rhine  valley  was  at 
the  time  the  nursery  of  Pantheistic  speculation  and  its 
like.  Even  so,  however,  Eckhart 's  sermons  and  their 
undoubted  popularity  make  a  curious  study.  It  is  one  of 
several  instances — the  Graal  legend  is  one,  the  story  of 
Joan  of  Arc  another,  the  working  of  the  great  craft-guilds 
c  third — which,  just  when  we  have  settled  our  convictions 
as  to  the  darkness  of  the  "  Dark  Ages  ",  surprise  us  and 
make  us  think  afresh.  Not  the  least  remarkable  circum- 
stance as  regards  Eckhart  was  that  the  Church  allowed 
him  to  preach  and  teach  unhindered  for  a  generation.  But 
the  Church  was  always  very  careful  and  very  tender  about 
a  genuine  mystic.  It  really  allowed  the  "  goodly  fellowship 
of  the  Prophets  "  to  sing  in  its  Te  Deum. 

Eckhart 's  story  is  soon  told.  He  was  born,  in  Thuringia 
probably,  about  1260.  He  entered,  about  the  age  of  fifteen, 
the  Dominican  convent  at  Erfurt,  and  afterwards  studied  at 
Cologne,  where  Albert  the  Great  had  just  died,  and  the 
writings  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  his  pupil,  were  attaining  their 
undisputed  pre-eminence.  Then  in  1302,  we  find  him  at  Paris, 
enrolled  in  the  school  of  theology  as  "  Brother  Aychardus,  a 
German  "  ;  already  he  was  Prior  of  Erfurt  and  Vicar-general 
of  Thuringia.  On  leaving  Paris  with  the  title  of  "  Meister  ", 
he  became  Provincial  Prior  for  the  Dominican  Order  in 
Saxony,  and  had  fifty-one  monasteries  and  nine  nunneries 
under  his  charge.  It  wiU  be  remembered  that,  just  as  the 
Franciscans  were  the  Mission-preachers  of  the  Church,  so 
the  Order  of  St.  Dominic  (the  "  Domini  canes,"  or  watch-dogs 
of  the  Lord,  as  their  punning  synonym  went)  was  founded 
to  teach  and  illustrate  the  orthodox  faith.  Hence  Eckhart 
had  two  great  periods  of  preaching,  one  at  Strassbourg,  the 
centre   of   "  every   type   of   Christian   Society   and   every 


ECKHART'S  TEACHING  121 

form  of  piety  ",  as  well  as  of  much  of  the  best  scholarship  of 
the  day,  the  other  at  Cologne  whither  he  moved  in  1320. 
He  died  seven  years  later,  under  suspicions  of  heresy  ;  "he 
wished  to  know  more  than  he  should",  was  the  Pope's 
verdict.     Now  for  some  notes  on  his  teaching. 

The  Godhead  is  above  all  distinctions.  "He  is  neither 
this  nor  that  ".  "All  things  in  Him  are  one  thing  ".  Yet 
He  is  the  eternal  Ground  or  Potentiality  of  being,  and  of  all 
distinctions,  as  yet  undeveloped.  He  is  the  great  Unknow- 
able, the  "  Nameless  Nothing  ",  "  the  Naked,  or  Wordless 
Godhead  ",  "  the  silent  wilderness  where  none  is  at  home  ". 
He  is  also  the  "  Unnatured  Nature  ".  These,  startling  as 
they  sound,  are  only  expansions  of  the  phrases  famihar  to 
ourselves,  the  "  Infinite  ",  the  "  Absolute  ".  Now  with 
Eckhart  the  Godhead  is  distinguished  from  God.  God  is 
the  Self-realization,  or  manifestation  of  the  Godhead  ;  He  is 
Triune,  the  Son  being  the  Father's  "Word,  the  uttered 
Thought  of  the  Thinker ;  the  Holy  Spirit,  following  out 
the  idea  of  Victorinus,  being  the  bond  of  love  between 
the  Father  and  the  Son.  It  would  seem  that  on  the 
whole  he  insisted  that  the  generation  of  the  Son  is 
continuous  and  eternal,  and  therefore  that  the  Trinity 
is  not  an  emanation  or  appearance  of  the  Absolute, 
but  of  Its  necessary  being.  The  universe  is  divided  into 
two  spheres,  the  sphere  of  Ideas,  and  the  sphere  of  Pheno- 
nomena.  The  sphere  of  Ideas  is  in  reality  the  activity  of 
the  Son,  for  the  Son  is  the  Reason  or  Word  of  the  Father, 
and  Reason  is  the  ordered  sum  of  Ideas.  In  this  sense 
Eckhart  utters  some  of  his  most  starthng  phrases  such  as, 
"  Nature  is  the  lower  part  of  the  Godhead  ",  and,  "  Before 
creation,  God  was  not  God".  All  depends  on  his  distinction 
between  the  Godhead  and  God.  What  is  the  connexion 
between  this  world  of  Ideas — the  Son  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  as  it  were — and  the  world  of  Phenomena,  between 
"  non-natured  nature  ",  and  what  Spinoza  afterwards  termed 


122    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

"  Natura  naturata "  ?  Eckhart  offers  the  Incarnation  as 
an  explanation.  Here  "  the  Prototype  passes  into  exter- 
nahty."  When  the  Christian  soul  frees  itself  from  the  phe- 
nomenal world  and  its  imprisoning  influence  and  gets  back 
to  the  "  inteUigible  world  ",  there  is  a  fresh  begetting  of  the 
Son  ;  so  that  the  Son  is  twice-begotten,  once  into  time,  then 
spiritually,  back  again  towards  God ;  the  spiritual  process 
is  therefore  a  circular  one.  Eckhart  found  it  difficult  to 
solve  the  problem  of  evil,  for  he  steadily  refused  the  Neo- 
Platonic  solution  of  the  Cosmos  or  Word  of  the  Godhead 
being  like  the  emanation  of  rays  from  the  sun,  growing  less 
bright  the  further  they  extended  from  the  Centre  of  Light. 
Nor  had  the  theory  of  evolution,  as  Dr.  Inge  points  out,  yet 
come  to  help  him.  Eckhart  is  strictly  CathoUc  in  refusing 
any  idea  of  subordination  in  Divine  essence  as  regards  the 
Son.  He  is  "  the  Brightness  of  the  Father's  glory, 
the  express  Image  of  His  Person".  But  in  consequence, 
since  he  practically  identified  the  intelligible  world  with  God, 
he  comes  very  near  to  Pantheism.  Indeed,  he  does  affirm 
(we  must  always  remember  his  love  for  epigrammatic  ex- 
pression) that  "  in  God  all  things  are  one,  from  angel  to 
spider",  and  one  of  the  gravamina  oi  the  Inquisition  against 
him  was  that  he  taught  "  in  omni  opere,  etiam  malo,  raani- 
festatur  et  relucet  aequahter  gloria  Dei  ".*  This,  of  course, 
if  he  really  affirmed  it,  is  much  more  serious  than  the  "  angel 
and  spider  "  sajnng,  in  which  we  are  confronted  rather  with 
Eckhart 's  optimism  over  something  generally  dishked, 
than  his  re-valuation  of  anything  definitely  evil.  He 
frequently,  in  any  case,  asserted  the  transcendence  of  God, 
e.g.  "  He  is  above  aU  Nature,  and  is  not  Himself  Nature  ". 
Probably  he  tried  at  different  times  to  express  the  two  facets 
of   truth,    apparently   discordant,   yet  each  felt  as  truth, 

*  "  The  glory  of  God  manifests  itself  and  shines  equally  in  every 
activity  ;    yea,  even  in  that  which  is  evil." 


THE   "FUNKELEIN"  123 

which  impress  themselves  by  turns — in  enduring  contradic- 
tion— on  the  mystical  mind.  Evil  is  chiefly,  with  him,  as 
with  Dionysius,  not-being,  privatio,  and  moral  evil,  it  follows, 
is  the  attempt  of  the  soul  to  get  out  of  God,  Who  is  Being — 
the  standing  by  one-self,  self-will. 

But  the  most  important  part  of  Eckhart's  system,  the 
part  which  became  distinctive  of  his  school,  was  his  doctrine 
of  the  Divine  Immanence  in  the  soul.  This  is  closely  con- 
nected with  his  tenet  as  to  the  Divine  "  spark",  "  dasFiin- 
kelein  ",  which  is  "  the  ground  of  the  soul ",  its  means  of 
union  with  the  Divine  Nature,  the  part  or  "  apex  ",  of  the 
spirit  whereby  the  spirit  is  gradually  informed  with  God 
and  becomes  God-like.  At  first  Eckhart  thought  that  this 
something  of  God  in  us,  whereby  we  respond  to  God,  is  a 
created  function,  a  residue  of  the  Divine  left  in  man,  and 
in  this  sense  it  had  been  inculcated  by  Albertus  Magnus, 
Aquinas  and  Bonaventura ;  but,  later,  Eckhart  went 
further  and  said  that  the  '*  Fiinkelein  "  was  the  very  true 
life  of  the  soul,  in  fact  was  God  Himself  in  man.^  "  Diess 
Fiinkelein,  das  ist  Gott ".  He  beats  down  all  series  of 
emanations  betwixt  the  soul  and  God,  all  grades  of  ascent 
to  God,  all  mediation  between  God  and  the  soul.  The  sys- 
tems of  Dionysius  and  the  scholastics  alike  disappear.  God 
is  simply  and  already  there  in  this  "  spark  "  of  the  soul,  the 
Divine  essence  itself.  All  depends  upon  the  Will :  on  the 
Will  Eckhart  lays  immense  stress.  In  a  sense  and  by  the 
nature  of  things,  the  Son  of  God,  the  power  of  response  to 
God,  is  born  in  every  man  coming  into  the  world  ;  but  by 
active  co-operation — the  imitation  of  Christ — and  by  passive 
contemplation  the  second  Birth  takes  place  in  the  soul.  The 
first  method  he  calls  "  the  way  of  the  manhood  ",  the  second, 
"  the  way  of  the  Godhead  ",  and  it  must  be  confessed  that 


^  Cf.  "  The  eye  with  which  I  see  God  is  the  same  as  that  with 
which  God  sees  me." 


124    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

in  treating  of  the  latter  he  does  fall  into  the  snare  of  the 
mystics,  the  temptation  to  get  beyond  Christ,  "  to  rise 
from  the  Three  to  the  One  ",  and  that  there  is  much  about 
the  "  Waste  Place  of  the  Godhead",  and  the  love  of  God  as 
He  is,  "a  non-God,  a  non-Spirit,  a  non-Person,  a  non-Form, 
absolute  bare  Unity ".  It  is  possible  to  comprehend  the 
nameless  longing  of  such  minds  as  Eckhart's  and  the  at- 
tempts in  words  to  express  that  which  is  intuition,  sensation, 
half  psychic,  half  spiritual,  in  any  event  inexpressible,  but 
these  were  dangerous  phrases  to  sow  broadcast  in  the  specu- 
lative soil  of  the  day.  Yet  Eckhart's  ordinary  teaching 
was  sound  and  sane  enough.  In  any  case,  "  the  way  of  the 
manhood  "  must  be  trodden  first  of  all ;  that  is  essential ; 
and  it  takes  the  whole  time  of  most ;  he  lays  perpetual  stress 
on  the  primary  duties  of  a  pure  intention,  and  on  love. 
Heaven,  Hell  and  Purgatory  are  states,  not  places.  If  any 
one  will  be  a  saint,  he  must  mix  with  his  kind,  avoid 
all  pecuharity  of  dress  or  manner,  rather  live  in  a  crowd 
than  retire  to  a  desert  to  fast,  and  accustom  himself  to 
small  duties,  which  are  harder  to  do  than  great.  The  spirit 
of  the  sixteenth  century  reformer  is  often  felt  strugghng 
towards  awakening,  and  sometimes  to  be  wide  awake,  in 
Eckhart.  He  stands,  a  supremely  interesting  figure,  at  the 
close  of  one  period,  and  the  beginning  of  the  next, — at  the 
close  of  Medieval,  and  at  the  beginning  of  Modern  Chris- 
tianity. 

Meister  Eckhart  had  two  great  pupils,  whose  lives  extended 
over  much  the  same  period  of  time,  1300  to  1365.  The 
three  men  made  up  a  remarkable  trio  with  the  various  gifts 
by  which  they  served  the  Church — Eckhart  as  a  philosopher, 
Tauler  as  a  preacher,  and  Suso,  who  was  beatified,  as  a 
man  with  whom  "  mysticism  was  an  intimate  personal  adven- 
iure ",  so  interesting  and  critical  that,  hke  Bunyan  the 
Puritan,  he  left  its  record  in  an  autobiography.  Around 
all  three,  and  knitting  them  the  more  together,  moved  the 


TAULER  125 

shadowy  shapes  of  the  members  of  that  strange  and  fascinat- 
ing Society  of  CathoHc  Quakers,  the  "  Friends  of  God." 
Of  this  Society  Tauler  was  a  leading  member. 

He  was  born  in  1300  at  Strassbourg  and,  like  Eckhart, 
entered  the  Dominican  Order  at  the  age  of  fifteen.  He  may 
have  studied  in  Paris,  and  all  that  is  quite  clearly  known  of 
him,  beyond  the  fact  of  his  being  the  greatest  preacher  of 
his  age,  is  that  he  moved  about  a  good  deal  between  Cologne, 
Basle,  and  Strassbourg,  at  which  last  named  place  he  died 
in  1361.  It  is  possible  that  at  Cologne  or  Paris  he  took  the 
degree  of  "  Master  in  Holy  Scripture " ,  but  there  is  no 
evidence  for  this  ;  yet  it  is  in  virtue  of  this  supposition  that 
he  is  always  called  "Dr."  John  Tauler,  and  that  he  has 
been  identified  as  the  "  Master  of  Holy  Scripture  "  who  was 
converted  by  the  mysterious  "  Friend  of  God ",  Master 
Nicholas,  at  Basle  and  visited  by  him  on  his  death-bed.  ^ 
The  story  of  the  conversion,  in  all  its  picturesqueness  and 
its  mystery,  rings  true  of  the  age  and  is  now  chiefly  impor- 
tant for  that  reason.  It  was  contradicted  and  nearly 
disproved  by  Denifle,  a  learned  Dominican  of  our  own  day ; 
re-habilitated  by  Preger,  who  wrote  the  history  of  German 
Mysticism  from  the  Protestant  standpoint ;  contradicted 
again  by  another  Dominican,  von  Loe,  and  is  now  regarded 
as  extremely  doubtful.  So  is  the  story  as  to  whether  Tauler 
and  his  Dominican  house  at  Strassbourg  resisted  the  Papal 
Interdict  laid  upon  Strassbourg  and  other  cities  which 
supported  Louis  the  Bavarian  in  1329.^  In  any  case  it  is 
really  to  be  doubted  whether  Tauler  needed,  or  was  any  the 
better  for,  so  vast  a  disturbance  to  soul  and  body  ahke,  and 

^  The  whole  story  is  told  at  length  by  Vaughan  :  Hours  with  the 
Mystics,  bk.  vi.  ch.  5,  and  by  Miss  Winkworth  :  History  and  Life 
of  the  Reverend  Dr.  John  Tauler. 

2jFor  a' brief  synopsis  of  these  disputed  "points  see  Mr.  Hutton's 
excellent  little  Introduction  to  The  Inner  Way — 46  of  Tauler's 
sermons. 


126    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

the  years   of  uselessness  entailed   on  him,   by  Nicholas* 
interference. 

Tauler  lays  far  more  emphasis  on  sin  than  does  his  master, 
Eckhart.  Sin  he  defines  as  selfishness.  He  was  a  practical 
-nstructor  of  souls,  and  therefore  he  bids  self  to  be  renounced 
and  abandoned,  and  mainly  in  its  two  degradations  of  pride 
iiiid  sensuality.  He  holds  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  of  man 
strongly.  Separation  from  God,  he  teaches,  in  words 
st'-angely  enlightened,  is  the  chief  and  indeed  only  true 
misery  and  the  veritable  hell.  "  The  human  soul  can  never 
cease  to  yearn  and  thirst  after  God ;  and  the  greatest  pain 
of  the  lost  is  that  this  longing  can  never  be  satisfied." 
It  is  natural  that  we  should  find  in  Tauler  the  doctrine  of 
the  Divine  spark  in  the  apex  of  the  soul,  butjhe  does  not  go 
to  such  lengths  as  Eckhart.  With  Tauler  it  is  a  created 
medium  for  a  special  purpose — the  presence  of  Christ  in  the 
heart.  This  work  of  Christ  in  us  is  one  of  his  great  doctrines ; 
and  there  are  three  stages,  first,  of  self-control,  during  which 
the  "  temple  courts  "  have  to  be  cleared  of  the  harsh  sounds 
of  buying  and  selling,  so  that  Jesus  may  be  heard  therein  ; 
secondly,  a  resting  like  John  on  the  breast  of  Jesus,  till  con- 
templation changes  the  soul  into  "  His  beautiful  image  " ; 
thirdly,  a  stage  attained  by  a  few  after  "  many  a  death  of 
nature,  inward  and  outward ",  when  practically  Christ 
lives  and  repeats  His  experience,  this  "  mingled  web  of 
grief  and  joy  "  in  the  soul.  In  the  third  stage.  Quietism, 
but  a  noble  Quietism,  appears.  The  will  and  intellect  are  to 
be  passive  to  receive  the  Divine  impress.  Perhaps  he  de- 
preciates the  intellect  too  much,  differing  herein,  yet  on  the 
whole,  considering  his  times,  healthfully,  from  Eckhart. 
"  Put  out  into  the  deep  ",  he  says,  "  and  let  down  your  nets 
for  a  draught  ".  But  the  deep  is  the  deep  of  the  heart :  it 
is  love,  not  speculation,  that  will  learn  most.  But,  granted 
God's  impress,  he  made  much  of  the  active  will.  "  With  the 
will  one  may  do  anything  ",  says  Tauler,  and  as  against  the 


SUSO  127 

errors  of  the  Via  Negativa,  he  has  striking  phrases.  "  We 
must  lop  and  prune  vices,  not  nature,  which  is  in  itself  good 
and  noble  "  ;  "  all  kinds  of  skill  are  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ", 
and,  "  works  of  love  are  more  acceptable  to  God  than  pious 
contemplation  ". 

Certainly  he  uses  the  language  of  the  advanced  mystics 
in  speaking  of  the  goal  of  the  soul.  It  is  once  more 
"  deification  ",  "  rising  above  distinctions  ",  "  the  Divine 
Abyss  ",  "  the  Waste  Place  ",  and  so  on.  He  had  forgotten 
Irenaeus'  wise  sentence.  "  Mensura  .  .  .  Patris  Filius." 
Yet  we  may  at  least  recall,  if  startled  by  such  language,  that 
it  was  used  by  holy  and  humble  men  of  heart,  who  perhaps 
really  knew  of  what  they  talked  with  unanimity  and  who 
used  a  discipline  of  life  to  which  we  are  strangers.  There 
was  with  the  mystics  a  temptation  to  soar  too  high,  but  by 
the  very  strain  and  effort  they  kept  before  the  Christian 
mind  the  fact  that  man  is  meant  to  soar. 

There  is  a  great  deal  more  to  tell  of  Suso  than  of  either 
Eckhart  or  Tauler.  He  left  an  Autobiography,  and  this 
record,  which  Dr.  Inge  calls  a  "  gem  of  medieval  Uterature  ", 
gives  us  Suso's  special  legacy  to  the  Church,  an  experience. 
He  returns  from  soaring  speculations  as  to  the  Unknowable 
and  the  Light  of  the  Absolute  which  is,  in  its  excess,  darkness 
to  the  soul's  eyes,  to  the  Life  and  Sufferings  of  Jesus,  which 
he  endeavours  to  bear  about  in  his  mortal  body.  In  this 
he  resembles  the  later  Spanish  mystics ;  and  there  is  in 
him  an  excellent  example  of  the  visionary,  as  apart  from 
the  ecstatic,  stage.  We  shall  probably  think,  and  not  be 
far  wrong  in  thinking,  that  his  visions  were  in  part  the  pro- 
duct of  his  awful  earlier  austerities.  There  were  two 
stages  in  his  life,  the  period  of  outward  penance  and  of 
visions,  and  the  period  of  inner  dereliction,  which  he  found 
far  harder,  and  which  was  his  fruitful  time,  spiritually  speak- 
ing, after  all. 

"  The  servitor  of  the  Eternal  Wisdom  ",  as  he  calls  him- 


128    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

self,  was  born  in  1295,  and  was  converted  to  his  life-long 
service  at  the  age  of  seventeen.  He  had  lived  hitherto  in 
careful  avoidance  of  deadly  sin,  but,  like  the  young  ruler  of 
the  Gospel,  had  not  escaped  an  inner  reproach.  Then  came 
a  voice,  "  Be  content  with  gradual  progress  :  treat  thyself 
well".  But  Wisdom  said  to  him,  "  If  thou  purpose  to  re- 
nounce all,  do  so  to  good  purpose  ".  This  voice,  whether  he 
misinterpreted  it  or  not,  he  obeyed,  and  began  a  long  series 
of  frightful  self  torments.  ^  No  man  ever  exhibited  this  side 
of  the  mystical  hfe  to  such  terrible  excess.  What  are 
we  to  say  of  it  ?  Well :  let  us  not  be  too  critical,  at  any 
rate.  The  inner  pressure  in  this  direction  has  in  some 
natures  been  enormous  ;  it  is  never  quite  absent  from  the 
mystical  hfe,  any  more  than  the  voluntary  Cross  was  absent 
from  Christ  and  His  teaching.  With  Suso,  it  proved  to  be 
a  valuable  experience,  in  spite  of  its  extravagance,  and 
in  his  fortieth  year,  when  a  fresh  and  unmistakable  com- 
mand came,  he  laid  it  all  down  as  obediently  as  he  had 
taken  it  up.  This  implied  that  he  kept  his  sanity  and  self- 
control  absolutely  unimpaired.  During  the  period  of  self- 
inflicted  torture,  he  had  visions,  and  one  undoubted  ecstasy. 
Curiously  enough,  if  one  may  venture  a  criticism.  Dr.  Inge 
does  not  in  the  least  distinguish  them,  and  yet  they  are 
perfectly  distinguishable.  The  account  of  the  Ecstasy  had 
best  be  read  in  Suso's  own  words  : — "  It  was  without  form 
or  mode  ;  but  contained  mthin  itself  the  most  entrancing 
delight.  His  heart  was  athirst  and  yet  satisfied.  It  was 
the  brealdng  forth  of  the  sweetness  of  eternal  hfe  ".  It  lasted 
half  an  hour,  and  left  certain  after-gleams  and  touches. 
Now  aU  this  corresponds  exactly  with  the  four  notes  of  the 
mystical  experience   we   have   earher    noted — Ineffability, 


^  For  a  long  quotation  of  these  austerities  from  The  Life  of  the 
Blessed  Henry  Suso  translated  by  T.  F.  Knox,  1865,  see  James  : 
Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  pp.  307-309. 


SUSO'S  VISIONS  129 

Authority  or  Certainty,  Transiency,  and,  we  may  judge, 
Passivity  on  the  part  of  the  recipient.  "  Etejnal  life  " 
broke  forth  ;  he  was  not  straining  towards  it.  As  regards 
transiency,  the  period,  half  an  hour,  exactly  corresponds 
with  that  mentioned  by  other  recipients  of  the  experience, 
for  instance,  St.  Teresa.  Now  if  we  compare  this  with  the 
visions,  the  difference  will  at  once  be  apparent.  Once 
Suso  saw  the  Eternal  Wisdom  in  the  form  of  a  lovely  woman. 
Another  time  an  angel  bade  him  look  within  and  see  how 
"  God  plays  His  play  of  love  "  with  the  soul.  His  body 
seemed  then  to  become  clear  as  crystal,  and  he  saw  his  soul 
lying  in  God's  arms,  whilst  beside  sat  Wisdom,  still  as  a 
beautiful  woman.  Yet  again,  he  saw  his  master  Eckhart, 
soon  after  the  latter's  death,  in  glory.  Once  the  Divine 
Child  appeared  to  him  in  the  Virgin's  arms,  and  he  embraced 
It.  All  this  is  pretty  enough,  but  it  is  "  of  such  stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  of  ".  Then  came  the  great  change.  He  was 
told  by  an  angel  to  discontinue  his  austerities,  "  Hitherto 
hast  thou  been  God's  squire.  Now  shalt  thou  be  God's 
knight ".  He  was  to  be  defamed  by  false  scandal.  He  was 
to  lose  the  sense  of  God's  love.  "  Hitherto  hast  thou 
floated  in  Divine  sweetness,  like  a  fish  in  the  sea  ;  now  shalt 
thou  starve  and  wither.  God  and  the  world  shall  forsake 
thee."  All  this  came  upon  him.  He  felt  he  must  go  out  and 
face  the  world  ;  and  by  a  not  infrequent  contradiction,  he 
who  feared  not  torments  worse  than  death,  self-inflicted, 
dreaded  incessantly  a  violent  death  at  others'  hands.  There 
were  many  who  hated  the  monks.  Then  came  a  terrible 
accusation  of  loose  living,  which  hung  over  him  like  a  black 
cloud  for  several  years.  At  last  he  was  cleared  and  ended 
his  days  at  the  age  of  seventy  in  peace  and  love  with  all  and 
with  God.     Truly  he  had  tasted  much  of  the  Passion. 

One  or  two  sentences  of  his  may  be  quoted.  "  This  is 
the  transit  of  the  soul.  It  passes  beyond  time  and  space, 
and  is  with  an  amorous  inward  intuition  dissolved  in  God. 

M.C.  K 


130    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

This  entrance  of  the  soul  banishes  all  forms,  images,  and 
multiplicity.  The  Divine  Nature  doth,  as  it  were,  inwardly 
kiss  through  and  through  the  soul."  Again,  "  A  man  of  true 
self-abandonment  must  be  un-built  from  the  creature,  in- 
built with  Christ,  over-built  into  the  Godhead ".  Asked 
to  give  an  illustration  of  the  Trinity,  he  gave  the  figure  of 
concentric  circles  following  the  throwing  of  a  stone  into  a 
pool  "  :  but,  he  added,  "  this  is  as  unlike  the  formless  truth 
as  a  black  moor  is  unlike  the  beautiful  Sun  ". 

Suso  held  that  Christ's  Humanity  is  the  key  to  God's 
secrets.  He  is  the  Way  and  the  source  of  living  energy  by 
which  we  walk  the  way.  So  the  mystical  saying  comes  true 
that  "  the  door  by  which  God  issues  from  Himself  is  the  door 
by  which  He  enters  the  human  soul  ".  More  than  any  other 
German  mystic,  Suso  shews  us  Christ,  and  Christ  in  His  sor- 
rows. This  is  the  proof  of  love.  "  No  Cross,  no  Crown  " 
is  the  link  that  unites  in  one  life  of  self-sacrifice  Christ  and  his 
servants. 

Something  has  already  been  said  of  the  Society  of  the 
Friends  of  God,  with  which  Eckhart,  Tauler,  and  Suso  were 
all  connected.  The  sense  of  spiritual  things,  of  which  the 
existence  of  this  and  kindred  associations  was  the  outcome 
and  the  expression,  had  been  greatly  intensified  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fourteenth  century  by  two  events  which  had,  m 
as  it  were,  thrown  people's  souls  back  upon  themselves, 
as  well  as  quickened  their  realization  of  eternal  things.  One 
of  these  events  was  the  awful  visitation  of  the  Black  Death, 
which,  on  the  Continent  as  in  England,  kiUed  a  vast  number 
of  devoted  parish  priests  and  left  their  flocks  without  regular 
ministry.  One  sign  of  the  impression  produced  by  the 
ravages  of  the  pestilence  was  the  appearance  of  the  Flagel- 
lants, melancholy  processions  of  devotees  drawn  from  all  ranks 
of  society,  who,  to  appease  the  Di\ine  wrath,  passed  through 
the  towns  and  villages  repeating  the  Penitential  Psalms  and 
scourging  themselves  the  while.    A  better  course  was  that 


\ 


THE   "THEOLOGIA   GERMANICA  "  131 

taken  by  Tauler  and  others  of  his  school  who  laboured  coura- 
geously and  persistently  among  the  sick  and  dying.  The  other 
event  that  came  to  crown  the  wretchedness  of  the  times  was 
a  miserable  quarrel  which  broke  out  between  the  Emperor 
Louis  the  Bavarian  and  Pope  John  XXII.  Strassbourg  and 
most  of  the  Rhine  cities  supported  the  Emperor,  with  the 
result  that  the  whole  country  was  laid  under  an  interdict 
that  lasted  twenty  years.  Deprived  thus  of  ordinary  minis- 
trations, societies  were  formed  in  all  directions  for  keeping 
alive  the  individual  spiritual  hfe,  and  the  fact  that  many 
priests,  such  as  Tauler,  belonged  to  these  societies  prevented 
them  in  great  measure  from  drifting  away  from  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  principles  of  the  societies,  especially  of  that 
one  known  as  the  "  Friends  of  God  ",  were  set  forth  by  a 
series  of  remarkable  writings.  Perhaps  the  most  representa- 
tive v^Titer  was  the  mystic  Rulman  Merswin,  to  whom  no 
less  than  sixteen  books,  largely  allegorical  in  character, 
have  been  ascribed,^  but  by  far  the  most  representative 
book  is  the  Theologia  Germanica,  which  has  indeed  survived 
as  one  of  the  world's  spiritual  classics. 

Its  author  is  entirely  unknown ;  he  was  without  doubt 
a  CathoUc,  probably  a  Knight  of  the  Teutonic  Order,  and  in 
all  likelihood  a  member  of  the  Society  of  the  Friends  of  God, 
as  the  teaching  of  the  little  book  is  practically  a  synopsis 
of  the  body  of  religious  thought  common  to  the  Society^ 
The  "Theologia",  whoever  wrote  it,  first  appeared  in  1350, 
certainly  in  Tauler's  life-time.  The  earliest  extant  MS. 
dates  from  1497.  Luther  got  hold  of  it,  and  published  an 
edition  in  15 16.  It  had  made  an  immense  impression  on 
him ;   he  says,  "  Next  to  the  Bible  and  St.  Augustine,  no 


^  For  a  full  list  of  these,  as  well  as  for  a  detailed  notice  of  Merswin 
and  a  singularly  full  and  excellent  account  of  the  "  Friends  of 
God,"  see  Prof.  Rufus  Jones,  Studies  in  Mysticism,  p.  246,  and  the 
entire  Ch.   13  of  that  work. 


132    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

book  hath  ever  come  into  my  hands,  whence  I  have  learned, 
or  would  wish  to  learn  more  of  what  God  and  Christ  and 
men  and  all  things  are  ".  No  fewer  than  seventeen  editions 
of  the  book  appeared  in  Luther's  day  ;  and  since  his  time 
it  has  had  over  sixty  editions  in  Germany,  and  has  been 
translated  into  Latin,  French,  Flemish,  and  English. 

Its  author  evidently  thoroughly  understands  Eckhart, 
but  he  wants  to  view  things  not  wholly  "  in  the  light  of 
eternity  ",  as  Eckhart  tries  to  do,  but  more  practically.  He 
maintains  the  distinction  between  the  Godhead, — formless, 
unknowable, — and  God  :  but  he  is  not  always  bidding  the 
r-oul  strain  itself  to  heights  that  turn  out  often  too  much  like 
empty  summits  if  and  when  attained.  So  the  soul,  he  says, 
lias  two  eyes,  the  right  looking  into  eternity  and  at  God ; 
the  left  beholding  the  things  of  time.  Christ  only,  says  this 
curious,  suggestive  passage,  saw  with  both  eyes  at  once. 
A  man  may  leave,  or  try  to  leave  temporal  things  and  images 
of  the  true,  too  soon  ;  but  leave  them  at  last  he  must  in 
intent  and  effort.  Sin  is  self-will,  self-love  ;  we  must  not 
love  God  just  for  what  we  have  of  Him,  It  is  sin  to  stop 
half-way  when  we  may  go  higher.  "  It  is  of  sin  ",  the  Theo- 
logia  quotes  Boethius,  "  that  we  do  not  love  that  which  is 
the  Best".  Actual  experience  is  insisted  on  throughout; 
the  new  birth  must  be  a  complete  and  verifiable  transforma- 
tion of  the  inner  nature.  The  little  book  has  less  in  it  by 
far  of  what  is  speculative  and  startling  than  Eckhart's 
teaching ;  but  it  has  a  deeper  sense  of  sin,  and  of  the  con- 
trast between  light  and  darkness  than  is  evinced  by  Eckhart, 
and  it  is  less  self-centred  than  a  Kempis'  great  work.  To 
rise  above  the  "  I  "  and  the  "  Mine  "  is  its  outstanding 
message,  and  its  ambition  is  "  to  be  to  the  Eternal  Goodness 
as  a  right  hand  to  its  owner  ". 

Jan  Ruysbroek,  "  Doctor  Ecstaticus  ",  as  he  is  named  by 
the  Church,  has  an  importance  of  his  own,  apart  from  his 
mysticism.     He  was   the  link   that  united   the  schools  of 


RUYSBROEK  133 

the  Rhineland  and  of  Holland,  the  "  Friends  of  God  "  and 
the  "  Brethren  of  the  Common  Life  ".  For,  himself  the 
friend  and  follower  of  Tauler,  he  had  for  disciple  the  famous 
Gerard  Groote  who  founded  the  brotherhoods  and  sister- 
hoods of  the  Common  Life,  the  society  of  which  Thomas  a 
Kempis  was  the  greatest  and  most  enduring  ornament. 
Ruysbroek  combined  in  his  own  character  the  two  aspects  of 
Christian  service,  the  practical  and  the  devotional,  to  a 
very  remarkable  degree.  A  hard-working  parish  priest 
till  the  age  of  sixty, — he  was  born  in  1293 — and  Vicar  of  the 
great  Church  of  St.  Gudule  in  Brussels  as  well  as  Prior  of 
Vauvert,  he  retired  thence  to  a  life  of  contemplation  in  the 
forest  of  Gronendal.  But  he  was  by  no  means  idle  or  solitary 
even  there.  Many  sought  his  advice  in  the  forest  recesses, 
attracted  by  the  reports  of  his  holiness,  and  the  growing 
reputation  of  the  mystical  books  ^  which  he  was  writing. 
One  such  band  of  inquirers,  priests  from  Paris,  wishing  to 
consult  him  on  the  state  of  their  souls,  got  from  him  the 
celebrated  answer,  "  You  are  as  holy  as  you  will  to  be  holy  ". 
One  thing  may  be  said  at  once.  His  intellectual  power$ 
were  insignificant  compared  with  those  of  Eckhart  and 
Tauler.  "  Teacher  had  he  none",  says  Denys  the  Carthu- 
sian, "  save  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  was,  like  Peter  and  John, 
unlearned  and  ignorant  ".  This  may  account  for  the  varying 
judgements  passed  upon  his  powers.  Speaking  generally, 
those  who  value  intellectuality  as  a  necessary  concomitant 
and  balance  to  the  mystical  gift,  are  apt  to  disparage  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  mystics  themselves  are  enthusiastic 
in  his  praise.  M.  Maeterlinck,  though  he  feels  that  the  light 
of  Ruysbroek's  mind  comes  to  us  as  through  "  poor  double 
horn-panes  ",  yet  exalts  him,  intellect  and  all,  as  one  well-nigh 


^  The  Book  of  the  Adornment  of  Spiritual  Marriage  :  The  Book 
on  True  Contemplation  :  The  Book  of  the  Sparkling  Ston$  :  a  treatise, 
"  On  th$  Seven  Grades  of  Lovt ",  and  others. 


134    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

beyond  praise.  He  "  receives  all  unconsciously  dazzling 
sunbeams  from  all  the  lonely,  mysterious  peaks  of  human 
thought  .  .  .  His  marvellous  ignorance  rediscovers  the 
wisdom  of  buried  centuries,  and  foresees  the  knowledge  of 
centuries  yet  unborn  ".^  "  He  is  one  of  the  rarest  souls  in 
the  goodly  fellowship  of  mystical  teachers.  One  comes 
away  from  a  study  of  him  with  a  sort  of  reverent  awe", 
says  Dr.  Rufus  Jones.  "  Both  saint  and  seer — one  of  the 
very  greatest  mystics  whom  the  world  has  yet  known  ",  is 
Miss  Underhill's  verdict.  Certainly,  Ruysbroek's  was  a 
wonderful  life  :  it  was  informed  through  and  through  with 
the  spirit  of  love,  love,  under  the  figure  of  spiritual  espousals 
with  the  Divine  Bridegroom,  (an  idea  destined  to  find  its 
complete  expression  centuries  afterwards  through  the  great 
modern  mystic,  Coventry  Patmore,)  and  love  in  the  practical 
affairs  of  everyday  life.  This  was  what  so  influenced  Gerard 
Groote,  as  we  learn  from  Thomas  a  Kempis'  Vita  Gerardi, 
when  he  visited  Ruysbroek  at  Gronendal.  Ruysbroek  was 
prior  of  the  community,  but  carried  out  the  humblest  tasks. 
in  that  happy  family  life,  while  all,  down  to  "  John  the  cook  ", 
were  treated  as  friends  and  consulted  even  on  spiritual] 
matters. 

In   his   actual   \viitings,    Ruysbroek   returned    to   whatj 
Eckhart  had  left,  and  laid  out  a  complete  chart  of  the 
mystic's  progress.     We  have  its  grades  and  stages  duly  setj 
in  order.     Thus  his  "  Ladder  of  Love  "  has  seven  steps  of 
progress  upwards,   (i)  Goodwill ;     (3)  Voluntary  poverty  ;j 
(3)  Purity ;    (4)  Lowliness  of  mind  ;    (5)  Desire  for  God's 
Glory ;     (6)  Divine   contemplation ;    and   (7)  unnameable,! 
indescribable  transcendence  of  all  thought  and  knowledge.] 
We  may  note  the  Eckhartian  prominence  of  the  will,  the 
emphasis,  common  in  his  day,  on  poverty,  and  two  vei 

1  Maeterlinck  :    Ruysbroek  and  the  Mystics,  translated  by  Jane 
Stoddart,  p.  12. 


RUYSBROEK'S  TEACHING  135 

wise  psychological  counsels  besides  ;   first,  that  humility  is 
made  to  follow  two  virtues  whose  practice  might  veiy  well 
lead  to  a  certain  cold  pride,  and  secondly,  how   ambition 
for  God  closely  succeeds  to  the  renunciation  of  self.   In  the 
"  Or  do  Spiritualmm  Nuptiarum  "  there  is  a  yet  more  com- 
plete chart  viewed   from   a  different   aspect.     Ruysbroek 
tells  us  that  there  are  three  stages  of  ascent,  the  Active 
life   corresponding  to  the  sensitive, — the  Inner  Life,  corre- 
sponding to  the  rational — and  the  Contemplative  Life  cor- 
responding to  the  spiritual,  powers  of  the  soul.     The  motto 
of  the  Active  life  is  "  Ecce  sponsus  venit  ",  and  this  Advent 
which  is  threefold,  in  the  days  of  His  flesh,  through  grace 
in  this  life,  and  finally  to  judgement,  is  met  on  the  soul's 
part  by  humility,  by  love,  and  by  justice.     Above  the  Active 
rises  the  Inner  life.     This  too  has  three  parts.     The  illumina- 
tion of  the  Intellect,  in  the  apprehension  of  eternal  Truth, 
shews  us  the  Coming  of  the  Bridegroom.     The  effort  of  the 
WiU  ensures  the  going  forth  to  meet  Him.     The  desire  of 
Love  to  be  united  with  Him  will  ensure  the  achtal  meeting. 
The  last,  or  Contemplative,  stage,  is  one  to  which  only  a  few 
attain  here  and  now.     In  attempting  its  description  Ruys- 
broek avails  himself  of  a  great  deal  of  Dionysian  and  Eck- 
hartian  phraseology,   the  talk  of  "living  immersion",  of 
"  melting  away  into  the  unknown  Dark  ".     "In  this  higher 
state  the  soul  sinks  into  the  vast  darkness  of  the  Godhead, 
into  the  Abyss  in  which  the  Persons  of  the  Trinity  transcend 
themselves ".     "  There    we    become    one    and    uncreated, 
according  to  our  prototypes/'.     No  one  has  gone  farther 
than  Ruysbroek  in  the  use  of  such  terms,  and  even  more 
startling  expressions  might  be  quoted.     Yet  there  are  three 
principles  to  which  he  clings,  which  save  this  wonderful 
man  from  becoming  one  of  those  "  theopaths,  living  in  inert 
sloth,  and  putting  down  every  impulse  as  Divine  ",  whom  he 
strongly  reprobates.     One  of  these  principles  is  his  zeal  for 
activity.     "  Laziness  is  not  holy  abstraction  ",  he  announces. 


136    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

and,  whatever  our  experience,  we  are  not  to  forsake  religious 
exercises.  All  his  life,  too,  he  was  a  vigorous  reformer  of 
abuse  and  an  unmerciful  critic  of  the  sins  of  popes,  bishops, 
monks  and  laity.  Another  saving  principle  was  his  convic- 
tion that,  in  all  the  spiritual  progress  made,  it  is  the  Son 
in  us  Who  responds  to  the  Father's  call.  "  The  abyss  of 
God  calleth  to  the  abyss  in  us".  A  third  is  that  while 
like  many  mystics  of  all  ages  he  yields  sometimes  to  the 
language  of  absorption  in  God — our  own  Keble  does  so  in 
the  closing  line  of  his  Evening  Hymn — he  believes  firmly 
in  the  retention  of  individual  personality.  The  creature, 
as  such,  remains  a  creature,  eternally  distinct  from  God. 
For  eternal  life  consists  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  there 
can  be  no  knowledge  without  self-consciousness.  "If we 
could  be  blessed  without  knowing  it,  then  a  stone  might  be 
blessed  ". 

One  of  the  most  ardent  disciples  of  Ruysbroek  was  Gerard 
Groote.  Born  in  1340,  the  son  of  wealthy  parents,  he 
became  a  professor  at  Cologne,  an  ambitious  and  clever 
man,  with  an  eye  to  worldly  advancement,  but  always  with 
a  keenness  for  study,  and  a  certain  vague  longing  for  things 
unseen,  which  at  first  only  found  its  vent  in  "  dabbling 
with  magic  and  astrology".  His  was  always  an  attractive 
personality,  with  much  brilliance  and  charm,  and  one  day, 
an  unknown  stranger,  after  watching  him  wistfully  for  some- 
time while  he  gazed  at  some  public  fete  in  Cologne,  came  to 
his  side  and  whispered,  "  Why  standest  thou  here  ?  thou 
shouldest  become  another  man ".  Soon  after,  Groote  fell 
ill,  and  the  strange  sentence  returned  to  his  mind.  He  rose 
from  his  sick-bed  a  changed  man,  and  went  to  seek  Ruys- 
broek's  advice  as  to  the  future.  After  a  time  of  preparation, 
he  set  forth  in  1379  ^^  preach  as  a  lay-evangelist,  and  his 
influence  in  the  North  was  only  second  to  that  which  had 
gone  forth  from  Francis  of  Assisi  in  the  South.  Crowds 
flocked  to  hear  him,  whole  towns  neglected  their  business. 


THE   "BRETHREN  OF  THE  COMMON   LIFE"     137 

even  meals  were  left  on  one  side,  when  Gerard  Groote  was 
preaching.  Much  of  his  teaching  dealt  with  current  ecclesi- 
astical abuses,  and  in  all  this  stir  continually  effervescent 
up  and  down  the  Rhineland  and  the  Low  Countries  it  is 
possible  to  see  how  the  soil  for  the  Reformation  was  being 
carefully  prepared,  and  how,  sooner  or  later,  that  mighty 
phenomenon  of  spiritual  growth  and  change,  far  from 
being  an  accidental  occurrence,  was  bound  to  corne.  Such 
preaching  as  Groote's  was  very  soon  stopped,  and  this 
interruption  turned  his  thoughts  into  another  channel.  A 
great  friend  of  his,  Florentius  Radewin,  suggested  the 
founding  of  a  new  community,  in  which  the  following  of  the 
devout  life  and  the  care  for  study,  in  the  form  of  the  copying 
of  manuscripts,  could  be  combined.  Gerard  worked  out 
the  idea,  and  the  first  house  of  the  Brethren  of  the  Common 
Life  was  set  up  at  Deventer  in  Holland.  The  movement 
rapidly  spread,  and  brother-houses — and  in  a  few  cases, 
sister-houses — were  constructed  in  a  great  many  towns  in 
Germany  and  Holland.^  The  idea  of  the  members'  life  was 
practical,  they  wore  simple  clothes,  and  their  chief  work 
lay  in  the  education  of  the  folk  around  them,  and  in  the 
provision  of  books.  The  children  were  a  special  concern  to 
them,  and  so  was  the  teaching  of  reading  and  writing  to  the 
poor. 

Among  the  children  who  had  their  schooling  from  the 
"  good  father  and  sweet  master  "  Florentius,  at  Deventer, 
was  Thomas  Haemerlein  of  Kempen,  known  to  suceeding 
ages  as  Thomas  a  Kempis. 

There  is  scarcely  any  reason  nowadays  for  refusing  to 
identify  the  author  of  the  "  Imitatio  "  with  the  writer 
whose  name  is  so  inextricably  interwoven  with  the  great 
spiritual  classic  that  with  English  people  to  talk  of  reading 


^  For  an  excellent  account  of  these  communities  see  G.  Harvey 
Gem's  Hidden  Saints. 


\ 


138    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

"  Thomas  a  Kempis  "  is  the  usual  way  to  speak  of  reading 
the  "  Imitation  ".  Other  names  have  been  suggested,  how- 
ever— Walter  Hylton's  is  one.  He  was  an  English  monk 
of  Surrey,  and  a  mystic,  and  was  said  to  have  written  a 
book  called  "  Musica  Ecclesiastica  ",  but  there  is  no  very 
cogent  proof  even  of  this.  The  Benedictines  have  sup- 
ported the  claims  of  John  Gersen,  Abbot  of  Vercelli. 
There  is  little  proof  that  he  even  existed,  and  much  that  he 
is  a  confusion  for  the  better  known  John  Gerson,  the  Paris 
Chancellor.  Something,  maybe,  of  the  sadness  and  humilia- 
tion of  Gerson's  last  days  may  be  said  to  be  reflected  in  the 
3rd  book ;  and  Frenchmen,  keen  over  the  controversy, 
have  patriotically  declared  their  interest  in  the  matter  by 
the  phrase,  "  Pour  Gerson,  pour  la  France".  Yet  Renan, 
a  judge  of  style  and  a  great  admirer  of  the  "  Imitation  ",  was 
against  the  ascription. 

Thomas  Haemerlein  of  Kempen,  the  usually  accepted 
author,  learned  at  Deventer  singing  and  the  copying  of 
manuscripts,  and  copying  became  one  of  the  lasting  pursuits 
of  his  life,  "  a  cup  of  cold  water  ",  as  he  names  it,  in  a  book- 
less age ;  and  who  shall  say  that  he  was  wrong  ?  Here 
is  a  sudden  glimpse  he  gives  us  of  the  quiet  holiness  of  the 
house  at  Deventer.  "  One  day  in  winter,  Henry  Brune 
was  sitting  by  the  fireside  warming  his  hands,  but  with 
his  face  turned  towards  the  waU,  for  he  was  at  the  time 
engaged  in  secret  prayer.  When  I  saw  this,  I  was  edified 
and  loved  him  from  that  day  aU  the  more  ".  From  Deventer, 
Thomas  went  to  the  brother-house  of  Mount  St.  Agnes  where 
in  his  retired  corner  he  spent,  with  just  three  years'  excep- 
tion, aU  his  life,  "  in  angello  cum  libeUo  " — "  in  a  little  nook 
with  a  little  book".  In  1414,  he  was  ordained  priest,  and 
became  a  Canon-regular  of  St.  Augustine. 

What  did  he  do  aU  this  time  ?  A  revolt  in  ZwoUe  and 
Deventer  against  a  newly  appointed  Bishop  of  Utrecht 
called  down  an  Interdict  on  the  towns,  and,  as  the  Canons 


THOMAS   A   KEMPIS  139 

of  St.  Agnes  obeyed  the  Interdict,  the  wrathful  inhabitants 
drove  them  forth  for  a  brief  exile  of  about  three  years. 
Then,  in  1450,  there  was  a  terrible  outbreak  of  plague  in 
Cologne,  and  the  St.  Agnes'  Canons  took  over  a  House  of 
Regulars  in  the  town  and  helped  to  nurse  the  sick.^  Other- 
wise, the  long  years  passed  in  an  atmosphere  of  peace,  the 
sort  of  luminous  peace  which  pervades  his  book.  The  book 
was  a  work  of  years  ;  it  was  at  times  so  much  in  his  mind 
that  he  would  lie  awake  in  bed  at  night  composing,  and  then 
write  out  his  thoughts  after  Lauds,  i.e.  at  about  2  a.m.,  and 
onwards.  Besides,  he  copied  the  entire  Bible  for  the  use  of 
his  House,  and  wrote  on  numberless  slips  of  vellum  texts 
for  distribution  amongst  the  poor ;  and  he  wrote  thirty-seven 
textbooks  besides.  So  he  was  scarcely  an  idler,  this  "  little 
fresh -coloured  man,  with  soft  brown  eyes,  who  steals  away 
often  to  his  cubiailum,  if  the  talk  gets  too  lively,  with  a 
genial  humour,  and  not  above  an  occasional  pun,  but  shy, 
and  fond  of  his  '  angellum  '." 

The  effect  of  the  quiet  life,  and  the  books,  and  the  presence 
of  these  holy  households  in  North  Germany  and  Holland, 
was  deep  and  lasting.  To  take  only  a  few  of  the  many  and 
very  differing  characters  which  the  "  Imitatio  "  has  influ- 
enced, we  hear  St.  Francis  de  Sales  saying,  "  There  is  no 
book  like  it/'.  Ignatius  Loyola  read  a  chapter  of  it  daily  ; 
so  did  a  very  different  thinker,  Auguste  Cornte.  Eugene 
of  Savoy  carried  the  book  about  with  him  in  all  his  cam- 
paigns, and  another  warrior,  Charles  Gordon,  wished  it  always 
by  him  and  sent  for  a  copy  during  the  last  days  at  Khartoum. 
Gladstone  called  it  "  a  golden  book  for  all  time,  but  most  for 
times  like  these  ;  it  shows  us  the  Man  of  Sorrows  ".  Mat- 
thew Arnold  named  it  "  the  most  exquisite  document  after 
the  New  Testament "  ;   Charles  Kingsley,   "  the  school  of 

1  For  a  short  and  beautifully  written  account  of  Kempis'  life 
see  J.  E.  G.  de  Montmorency  :  Thomas  d  Kempis.  His  Age  and 
Book,  pp.  83-103. 


140    THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

many  a  noble  soul ".  Vaughan,  in  his  "  Hours  with  the 
Mystics  ",  called  Kempis  in  a  more  discriminating  passage 
than  usual  "  the  comforter  of  the  fifteenth  century  ".  Dr. 
Johnson  liked  it  especially  for  one  shrewd  sentence, 
"  Be  not  angry  that  you  cannot  make  others  as  you  would 
wish  them  to  be,  since  you  cannot  make  yourself  as  you 
wish  to  be  ".  George  Eliot  describes  the  "  Imitation  "  as 
soothing  Maggie  Tulliver's  troubles  in  the  "  Mill  on  the 
Floss  ",  and  in  one  of  the  late  Edward  Cooper's  books  what 
purports  to  be  an  actual  child's  diary  tells  how  the  child 
read  it  to  her  mother,  and  thought  it  dry  and  hard  ;  but 
later  on,  in  sudden  terror  during  the  mother's  last  illness, 
reads  it  again  and  finds  that  "  it  seems  to  suit  you  when  you 
are  frightened  ". 

So  the  book  is  a  classic.  Is  it  a  mystical  classic  ?  To 
some  extent  the  answer  must  be,  Yes.  It  is  mystical  in 
that  it  looks  steadily  at  the  unseen,  and,  in  Browning's 
words,  here  is  a  man  who  "  at  least  believed  in  soul,  was  very 
sure  of  God".  It  adopts  the  mystical  gradations,  too;  the 
Three  Stages  of  Ascent  are  here.  Nevertheless,  we  miss 
very  much  some  chief  mystical  characteristics.  Here,  for 
one  thing,  is  no  note  of  striving  after  the  Ineffable,  the  Abso- 
lute ;  here  is  no  message  of  the^Divine  in  man  responding  to 
the  drawing  of  God  ;  here  is  scarcely  the  gleam  "  of  light 
that  never  was  on  land  or  sea  ".  It  is  the  human  Christ  Who 
speaks,  and  the  soul  as  it  were  outside  of  Him,  distinct  from 
Him,  that  answers  ;  it  is  an  Imitation,  not  a  Transformation. 
Then  there  is  no  thought  of  the  possibility  of  the  Ecstasy  ; 
all  is  orderly,  ordinary,  defined,  limited — you  are  in  a 
heavenly  earth,  it  is  true,  but  on  earth  still.  Unlike  those 
mystics  who  seem  to  try  to  pass  beyond  Christ,  and  to  reach 
the  essential  Godhead,  a  Kempis  never  leaves  the  humanity 
of  Christ  or  attempts  to  see  what  it  was  to  which  Christ 
pointed,  and  what  He  at  one  and  the  same  time  concealed 
and  revealed,  as  the  simlight  reveals  and  yet  conceals  the 


THE    "  IMITATIO   CHRISTI  "  141 

sun.  Dr.  Inge  distinctly  denies  that  the  "  Imitatio  "  is  a 
mystical  treatise  at  all,  let  alone  "  the  finest  flower  of  Chris- 
tian Mysticism ",  as  it  has  sometimes  been  called.  It  is, 
he  thinks,  "  the  ripe  fruit  of  medieval  Christianity  as  con- 
centrated in  the  life  of  the  Cloister  ",  but  there  is  no  trace 
of  "  that  independence  which  made  Eckhart  a  pioneer  of 
modern  philosophy,  and  the  fourteenth-century  mystics 
forerunners  of  the  Reformation  ".  He  praises  it  for  its 
teaching  of  humility,  simplicity,  and  purity  of  heart ; 
but  condemns  it  as  really  "  a  defence  of  the  recluse  and  his 
scheme  of  life ".  ^  This  accusation  of  a  kind  of  spiritual 
selfishness  has  been  brought  again  and  again  ;  Dean  Milman 
first  started  it  on  its  way.     Is  it  quite  fair  ? 

(i)  For  one  thing,  the  social  side  of  religious  life  was 
thoroughl3/-  developed  in  the  Medieval  Church.  Never  has 
the  corporate  aspect  of  Christianity  received  so  vast  and 
diversified  an  attention.  The  Church  took  part  in,  organ- 
ized, claimed  as  legitimate  spheres  of  its  influence  pageants, 
merrymakings,  fairs,  feastings,  schools  and  holidays,  matters 
of  commerce  and  trade  (through  the  great  Guilds),  Art, 
diplomacy,  chivalry  and  even  war  in  a  way  we  can  scarcely 
realize  nowadays.  Tt  was  in  part  the  development  of  the 
Teutonic  spirit  within  its  pale,  in  part  the  legacy  of  the 
dream  of  a  spiritual  imperium  derived  from  Hildebrand.  An 
emphasis  on  the  other  side,  the  side  of  quiet  devotion,  in- 
ward self-knowledge,  God-knowledge  was  the  thing  needful 
above  all  others,  (ii)  Then,  as  we  have  seen,  the  lives  lived 
by  Thomas  and  his  fellow-Brethren  of  the  Common  Life  were 
not  idle  and  recluse,  but  exceedingly  useful.  Only  they 
had  their  own  idea  of  usefulness,  (iii)  This  idea  was  a 
reaction,  in  point  of  fact,  from  the  Franciscan  ideal.  The 
Franciscans  had  gone  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges 
after  Jesus,  and  the  life  of  their  founder,  ' '  the  child  of  Nature 

1  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  p.   194. 


142     THE  GERMAN  MYSTICS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

and  of  God,  half  angel  and  half  nightingale  ",  as  Dr.  Bigg  has 
called  him,  was  indeed  unique,  on  its  own  side  as  near 
Christ's  life  as  any  human  being  has  lived  it.  But  Francis 
was  an  exceptional  man,  and  his  rule  with  lesser  men,  as  the 
first  love  waxed  cold,  was  open  to  corruption.  The  "  cor- 
ruptio  optimi  "  was  indeed  "  pessima  ",  and  came  frightfully 
soon  ;  by  Chaucer's  time  the  name  '  Franciscan  '  was  nearly 
a  reproach,  it  meant  wandering  idleness  and  sturdy  beggary, 
and  often  things  far  worse.  So  that  to  many,  after  all,  a 
Kempis'  companions  among  them,  the  disciplined  life  seemed 
better — the  life  of  rules,  of  set  hours,  of  thought  and  prayer. 
His  own  duty  lay  in  the  reception  and  training  of  younger 
brethren.  There  is  an  engraving  of  copper  over  his  tomb, 
which  shows  him  coming  out  of  the  chancel  to  receive  a 
young  man  desirous  of  renouncing  the  world  and  of  entering 
the  religious  life.  The  youth  kneels,  holding  a  scroll  on 
which  is  written,  "  Oh,  where  is  peace,  for  thou  its  path 
hast  trod  ?  "  Thomas  replies  on  another  scroll,  held  in 
his  hands,  "  In  poverty,  retirement,  and  with  God".  But 
there  is  one  sentence  in  the  "  Imitatio  "  which  shows  that 
Thomas  and  his  brethren  were  not  unmindful  of  the  big, 
needy  world  around.  "  Si  portari  vis,  porta  aliuni."  And 
again,  "  Learn  how  many  times  greater  is  the  virtue  that  is 
tested  by  action  than  the  virtue  which  depends  on  thought 
and  imagination ".  Moreover,  the  school  of  Thomas  at 
Mount  St.  Agnes  became  the  great  classical  seminary  of  the 
North  ;  three  of  his  disciples  visited  Italy,  and,  bringing 
from  that  home  of  the  Renaissance  the  study  of  Greek,  are 
regarded  as  the  founders  of  German  classical  learning.  In- 
deed, the  educational  work  of  the  Brethren  as  a  whole  was 
one  of  the  great  factors  in  the  Revival  of  Letters.  Thomas 
a  Kempis  died  in  1471,  "  on  the  festival  of  St.  James  the 
Less,  after  compline ",  in  his  ninety-second  year.  It  is 
curious  to  think  that  a  few  years  after  his  death  the  little 
Erasmus  was  studying  Greek  under  Hegius,  not  himself  a 


THE   REVIVAL   OF   LETTERS  143 

Brother,  but  in  close  touch  with  the  Brethren,  and  Rector 
of  the  School  at  Deventer ;  ^  and  that  some  of  the  Brother- 
hood houses  lingered  on  till  suppressed  by  Napoleon. 

1  See  S.  Harvey  Gem:    Hidden  Saints,  pp.  115-116. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

English  and  Italian  Mystics 

AS  the  Medieval  mind  felt  more  and  more  the  disinte- 
grating effects,  first,  of  the  Renaissance,  and  then 
of  its  child,  the  Reformation,  Mysticism  tended  to  lose  its 
aspect  of  distinctive  schools  of  thought  and  to  become 
increasingly  the  affair  of  individuals.  It  is  always  possible, 
of  course,  as  well  as  very  convenient,  to  take  nationalities, 
and  to  group  the  mystics  under  these  labels.  In  this  way, 
we  might  speak,  from  the  fourteenth  to  the  sixteenth  cen- 
turies, of  the  English  school,  the  Italian  school,  the  Spanish 
school :  but  we  could  not  do  this  in  the  same  way  as  when 
we  spoke  of  the  Alexandrines,  the  Neo-Platonists,  or  the 
school  of  Eckhart.  There  is,  for  example,  no  special  con- 
necting tie  between  the  visionary  anchoress,  Julian  of  Nor- 
wich, and  Walter  Hylton— Julian  has  more  affinity,  were 
we  to  seek  it,  with  Angela  of  Foligno.  So  Teresa  resembles 
St.  Catherine  of  Genoa  more  nearly  than  St.  John  of  the 
Cross.  Premising  this,  however,  and  remembering  that 
the  chain  of  connexion  which  we  adopt  for  clearness'  sake 
must  of  necessity  be  a  rather  artificial  one,  we  shall  not  do 
badly  if  we  try  to  examine  in  this  chapter  a  few  types  of 
Mysticism  according  to  the  countries  to  which  they  owed 
their  birth. 

(i)  First,  with  regard  to  England,     There  is  a  certain 

amount  of  paradox  in  English  Mysticism,  a  little  of  the  odd 

u 


THE  ANCHORITES  145 

contradiction  which  runs  through  the  English  character. 
"  Saxons,  and  Normans,  and  Danes  are  we  ",  and  we  show 
our  very  varied  derivations  by  exhibiting  unexpected  and 
incongruous  traits.  England  prides  itself,  for  instance, 
and  justly,  on  its  common  sense,  its  moderation,  its  love 
of  compromise,  and  in  religious  things  on  its  saneness  and 
aloofness  of  judgement ;  but  it  has  also  contrived  to  be  a 
nursery  of  poets,  and  these  poets  have  sung  in  greatest 
number  and  most  convincingly  during  England's  most 
matter-of-fact,  commercial,  and  disillusioned  periods — the 
periods  of  Elizabeth,  of  Anne,  and  of  the  Victorian  age. 
Or  again,  the  most  conservative,  law-abiding,  and  proudly 
constitutional  nation  in  Europe  was  the  first,  strangely 
enough,  to  cut  off  its  king's  head  in  the  name  of  freedom, 
and  then  to  drive  out  its  honoured  Parliament  at  the  edge 
of  the  sword. 

So  when  we  come  to  more  out-of-the-way  corners  of  Eng- 
lish thought  and  history,  we  need  not  be  unprepared  for 
paradox.  And  we  get  it.  One  of  the  most  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  English  Mysticism  is  its  sane  common 
sense — a  common  sense  that  knows  the  world  and  its  ways, 
is  just  a  little  humorous,  a  little  caustic  at  times.  Exaggera- 
tions of  feehng,  deep  philosophizing  we  do  not  meet  with. 
But  then,  whence  did  this  Mysticism  of  common  sense  pro- 
ceed ?  Partly,  at  any  rate,  from  lives  lived  in  the  most 
singular  fashion  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  For  three  of  the 
great  Enghsh  mystics,  Margery  Kempe,  Richard  Rolle  of 
Hampole,  and  Julian  of  Norwich  were  anchorites.  Of 
Margery  Kempe,  the  anchoress  of  Lynn,  very  little  is  known, 
but  Richard  Rolle  and  Julian  felt  the  full  influence  of  their 
mystical  period  and  exercised  a  great  deal  in  return.  But 
even  in  Margery  Kempe  we  get  a  ghmpse  of  the  practical 
English  spirit  in  her  love  and  care  for  lepers.  ^ 

^  See  E.  Underbill :  Mysticism,  p.  270,  which  quotes  from  Mr.  E. 
Gardner's  Cell  of  Self -Knowledge. 

M.C.  L 


146  ENGLISH  AND  ITALIAN  MYSTICS 

First,  who  and  what  were  the  anchorites  ?  They  were 
recluses,  men  and  women  who  hved  under  vows  the  hermit 
life,  either  in  the  country  or,  more  frequently  perhaps  in 
the  case  of  women,  in  cathedral  cities.  A  favourite  position 
was  a  cell  joined  to  the  outer  side  of  a  cathedral  or  church 
waU.  The  traces  of  one  such  remains  outside  St.  Mary's 
Church  at  Sandwich,^  and  there  was  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury a  noted  anchorite  who  hved  by  Westminster  Abbey. 
One  wonders  whether  the  great  number  of  these  hermits 
in  England  was  not  a  sort  of  medieval  testimony  to  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  English  religious  character  taking  its  only 
recognized  and  respectable  outlet.  For,  "  the  life  of  the 
recluse,  now  seldom  chosen,  and  never  respected  .  .  .  was 
once  a  career,  and  not  the  abdication  of  all  careers.  .  .  . 
It  was  a  recognized  manner  of  life,  which,  however  austere, 
did  not  at  all  condemn  him  who  had  chosen  it  to  obscurity 
or  contempt  ".^  Hermits  originally  came  into  being  after 
the  Decian  persecution  in  250,  when  great  multitudes  fled 
into  the  deserts  of  North  Africa,  and  lived  the  rest  of  their 
lives  there,  solitary,  prayerful,  and  safe.  Thenceforth, 
such  recluses  were  never  wanting  to  the  life  of  the  Church, 
and  the  best  of  them  did  actually  spend  their  days  in  inter- 
cessory prayer,  and  also  in  counselling  those  who  resorted 
to  them  for  advice.  The  hermits  were  stationary,  and 
one  of  the  pecuharities  of  the  life  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
its  restlessness.  Merchants,  crusaders,  scholars,  pilgrims, 
were  for  ever  on  the  move,  and  many  a  hermit's  or  anchoress' 
cell  was  like  a  fixed  star  to  guide  the  wanderer  by  its  beam. 
That  they  were  held  in  a  very  deep  awe  and  reverence  is 
evidenced  by  such  a  fact  as  that  King  Richard  II  went  to 
confession  to  the  anchorite  at  Westminster  immediately 
before  his  hazardous  meeting  with  Wat  Tyler  and  his  mob  ; 

1  Doubtless  there  are  many  others  up  and  do\vn   the   country. 
See  infra. 

2  Inge  :    Studies  of  English  Mystics,  p.  38. 


RICHARD   ROLLE  147 

and  such  a  book  as  the  "  Ancren  Riwle^",  drawn  up  for 
three  ladies,  anchoresses,  by  Bishop  Poore  of  Salisbury  ^ 
in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  also  shows  how 
widespread  and  ordinary  such  a  manner  of  the  devout  life 
had  become. 

Richard  RoUe,  "the  father  of  English  mysticism  ",2 
was  a  highly  educated  Oxford  scholar,  and  well  read  in 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  St.  Bernard,  and  St.  Bonaventura. 
Perhaps  the  latter  gave  him  a  certain  touch  of  Franciscan 
poetry,  and  a  burning  zeal  for  souls.  For  he,  most  mystical 
of  mystics,  was  in  this  last  particular,  a  very  practical 
servitor  of  God.  What  marks  him  out  from  other  mystics 
is  that  to  him  the  apprehension  of  the  Divine  seems  to  take 
the  form  of  Music.  First  there  is  a  state  of  burning  love, 
which  he  described  as  "  calor",  and  then  this  is  changed  to 
"  canor  " — "  meditation  is  turned  into  a  song  of  joy ". 
"  Song  ",  he  says,  "  I  call  when  in  a  plenteous  soul  the  sweet- 
ness of  eternal  love  with  burning  is  taken  .  .  .  and  the 
mind  into  full  sweet  sound  is  changed".  The  man  who 
experiences  this  melody  "  is  taken  into  marvellous  mirth  ". 
and  even  "  with  notes  his  prayers  he  sings  ".  In  another 
passage  he  compares  the  soul  that  loves  God  to  a  "  little 
bird  that  for  love  of  her  lover  longs  ,  .  .  and  joying  she 
sings,  and  singing  she  longs,  but  in  sweetness  and  heat ".  * 
One  or  two  sayings  may  perhaps  be  culled  from  this  writer, 
before  we  pass  on,  sayings  of  a  more  general  wisdom  and 

^  It  is  also  attributed  to  a  later  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  Simon  de 
Ghent.  For  its  provisions,  delightful  in  their  quaint,  common- 
sense  simplicity  see  the  book  by  Dr.  Inge  already  quoted,  pp.  41-49. 

2  He  is,  in  part,  one  suspects,  the  prototype  of  Fr.  Benson's 
Richard  Raynal. 

3  These  quotations  are  taken  from  Miss  UnderhiU's  Mysticism, 
pp.  92,  234.  A  full  and  excellent  account  of  Rolle  is  given  in  the 
Introduction  to  the  Works  of  Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole  and  his 
followers.  Edited  by  C.  Horstman,  2  vols.  (Library  of  Early  English 
Writers.) 


148  ENGLISH  AND  ITALIAN  MYSTICS 

application.  Thus  :  "  Love  is  a  life,  copuland  together 
the  loving  and  the  loved  ".  Again,  "  All  deadly  sin  is  in- 
ordinate love  for  a  thing  that  is  naught  ".  Again,  and  Very 
shrewdly,  "  Truth  may  be  without  love,  but  it  may  naught 
help  without  it ",  and  "  I  hope  that  God  has  no  perfect 
servant  upon  earth  without  enemies  of  some  men  ;  for  only 
wretchedness  has  no  enemy  ". 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  anchorite  mystics  was 
Julian  of  Norwich,  who  wrote  "  Sixteen  Revelations  of 
Divine  Love  ".^  In  Norwich  "the  little  church  of  St. 
Julian  ",  says  Miss  Warrack,  who  has  edited  the  "  Revela- 
tions ",  "  still  keeps  from  Norman  times  its  dark  round  tower 
of  flint  rubble,  and  still  there  are  traces  about  its  foundation 
of  the  anchorage  built  against  its  south-eastern  wall". 
Here  from  1370  to  1450  lived  a  Benedictine  nun  of  Carrow, 
called  the  Lady  Julian, — the  courtesy  prefix  was  usually 
given  to  recluses  who  were  gentlewomen.  She  describes 
her  experience  as  revelations  made  to  her  by  God  ;  they 
began  at  the  age  of  thirty.  Their  characteristics  are  abso- 
lute candour  and  simplicity,  happiness  of  temperament, 
humility  and  love  of  her  kind,  and  dehght  in  being  busy — 
"  sloth  and  losing  of  time  are  the  beginnings  of  sin  ",  she 
says.  It  is  a  very  attractive  character  that  is  thus  revealed, 
and,  on  the  psychic  side,  her  accounts  of  what  happened 
are  singularly  true  to  modern  psychological  knowledge. 
She  had  prayed,  it  seems,  for  three  gifts  from  God,  the  first 
of  which  was  a  sight  of  the  Passion  of  Christ.  Devotion 
and  loyalty  to  our  Lord  were  strong  traits  in  her  mind, 
proof  even  against  strange  mystic  temptations.  Secondly, 
she  had  asked  for  a  sickness  or  pain  that  would  purge  her 
of  sin  and  self-will :  ^  and  thirdly,  for  three  "wounds". 

^  Grace  Warrack  :  Revelations  of  Divine  Love  recorded  by  Julian, 
anchoress  at  Norwich. 

2  "  For  hearts  that  verily  repent 
Are  burdened  \\dth  impunity 
And  comforted  by  chastisement".        Coventry  Patmore. 


JULIAN   OF  NORWICH  149 

The  first  two  requests  were  made  subject  to  God's  will,  but 
the  third  was  made  absolutely,  for  the  three  wounds  were 
true  contrition,  a  natural  sympathy,  and  a  steadfast  longing 
for  God. 

The  illness  for  which  she  prayed  actually  came,  and  her 
life  was  despaired  of.  It  was  during  the  crisis  of  her  illness 
that  her  "  revelations  "  or  visions  began.  These,  we  shall 
do  well  to  remember,  were  "  visions  ",  and  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  mystical  Ecstasy.  But  they  were  probably  as 
truly  "  visions  "  as  St.  Peter's  trance  on  the  housetop,  or 
St.  Paul's  vision  of  Christ,  and  like  Peter's  trance,  they  came 
in  what  would  be  now  called  an  abnormal  bodily  state. 
He  was  fasting ;  she  was  ill.  But  she  can  always  quite 
sanely  distinguish  the  visions  from  mere  dreams  ;  and  they 
are  described  simply  and  directly  without  any  furbishing 
or  ornament. 

The  visions  were  of  Christ  crucified.  There  is  no  need 
to  enlarge  on  them  further  than  to  say  that  they  were  most 
important  as  forming  the  beginning  of  her  mystical  experi- 
ence. She  was  thereby  stayed  on  Christ,  and  able  to  resist 
the  mystic's  characteristic  temptation  to  soar  beyond. 
The  thought  did  come  to  her  once  that  she  ought  to  look 
beyond  the  Cross  to  heaven  and  God  the  Father,  but  she 
answered  inwardly  to  her  Lord,  "  Nay ;  I  may  not,  for 
Thou  art  my  heaven  ".  Christ  as  her  Friend  and  Master 
was  a  living  reahty  to  her,  and  she  thus  describes  the  soul's 
relations  with  Him  in  a  kind  of  charming  language  of 
chivalry.  "  Our  courteous  Lord  willeth  that  we  should 
be  as  homely  with  Him  as  heart  may  think,  or  soul  may 
desire.  But  beware  lest  we  take  recklessly  this  homeliness, 
so  as  to  leave  courtesy.  For  our  Lord  is  sovereign  homeli- 
ness, and  as  homely  as  He  is,  so  courteous  He  is  ". 

For  her  teaching,  it  is  grounded  on  love  to  God,  and  in 
God  to  all,  and  an  intense  happiness  and  hopefulness.  She 
is  no  stranger  to  the  high  mystical  apprehensions  of  God. 


150  ENGLISH  AND  ITALIAN  MYSTICS 

For  example,  here  are  three  mystical  sayings  that  equal 
anything  that  Eckhart  taught.  "  I  saw  God  in  a  point  ". 
Here  mathematics,  philosophy,  and  theology  all  touch, 
though  to  the  first  and  second  she  was  in  all  probabiUty  a 
complete  stranger.  Again,  "  unmade  kind  (i.e.  matter)  is 
God",  which  reminds  us  of  Ruysbroek's  doctrine  that  God- 
is  potential  force,  or  hfe,  or  substance.  Again,  "^It  needeth 
us  to  naughten  (i.e.  to  make  naught)  all  thing  that  is  made, 
for  to  love  and  honour  God  that  is  unmade  ". 

Others  will  like  better  her  more  human  apprehensions  of 
God  and  His  love.  She  believes  in  that  love  with  a  sort 
of  saintly  heartiness.  "  God  wills  that  we  should  more 
rejoice  in  His  whole  love  than  sorrow  in  our  often  faiHngs  ". 
"It  is  the  best  worship  of  Him  .  .  .  that  we  live  gladly 
and  merrily,  for  His  love,  in  our  penance.  For  He  beholdeth 
us  so  tenderly  that  He  seeth  all  our  being  a  penance".  She 
sees,  and  sorrows  for,  sin,  and  is  cast  down  by  the  mystery 
of  evil,  but  a  Voice  comes  to  her  again  and  again,  "  I  have 
done  in  the  Atonement  of  Christ  that  which  is  greatest ; 
shall  I  fail  in  the  rest,  that  which  is  less  ?  "  and  once  more, 
"  All  shall  be  well,  and  all  manner  of  thing  shall  be  well". 
She  sees  no  wrath  anywhere,  save  in  man ;  and  "  that  for- 
giveth  He  in  us".  God  is  revealed  to  her  as  Life,  Love, 
and  Light ;    and  these  are  one  goodness. 

In  Walter  Hylton  we  have  a  contrast,  though  not  a  dis- 
cordant contrast,  both  in  life  and  teaching,  to  Julian  of 
Norwich.  Yet  in  some  ways  he  acts  as  her  complement, 
just  as  Tauler  supplemented  Eckhart,  or  the  Theologia 
Germanica  some  of  the  more  visionary  writings  of  Suso. 
Of  Hylton  himself  we  know  httle,  though,  as  we  saw,  he 
was  at  one  time  credited  \vith  the  authorship  of  the  "  Imita- 
tio".  He  was  Canon  of  Thurgartonin  Yorkshire,  and  died 
in  1396,  and  his  hfe  was  not  that  of  a  hermit,  but  of  a  work- 
ing parish  priest,  who  knew  the  world  of  his  own  day  well. 
The  book  by  which  he  "  being  dead,  yet  speaketh  "  is  called 


WALTER   HYLTON  151 

the  "  Scale  of  Perfection ",  and,  as  its  name  implies,  is  a 
description  of  the  ladder  of  the  spiritual  life,^  But  Hylton's 
ladder  has  rungs  quite  peculiar  to  itself.  The  first  step  is 
a  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  rehgion ;  this  is  only  a  shadow 
of  true  contemplation,  for  it  may,  of  course,  be  without 
love.  It  is,  we  are  told,  like  the  water  of  Cana,  which 
Divine  grace  must  turn  into  wine.  The  second  step  is  the 
feeling  of  grace — warmth  without  Ught  to  analyse  it.  This 
feeling  at  first  comes  and  goes,  but  steadily  increases,  till 
the  third  step  is  reached,  knowledge  with  love.  The  Second 
Part  deals  with  the  higher  rungs  of  the  ladder,  and  is  per- 
sistent, by  every  inducement  of  which  Hylton  can  avail 
himself,  in  persuading  those  who  have  reached  the  lower 
stages  to  press  on  higher.  There  is  no  standing  still  in  the 
spiritual  life  ;  not  to  advance  is  to  recede,  and  it  is  danger- 
ous for  any  one  to  aim  at  what  is  barely  sufficient,  for  he 
may  of  course  just  miss  it,  and  losing  that,  lose  everything. 

Like  Julian,  he  puts  the  greatest  stress  on  the  Person  of 
Christ,  and  is  careful  to  inculcate  the  regular  use  of  the 
Sacraments.  Of  the  soul  in  Part  Three  he  has  much  to  say, 
and  of  the  soul's  relations  with  its  "  Heaven,  which  is  Jesus 
God  ".  We  must  not  look  for  our  soul  inside  the  body  ;  it 
is  far  truer  to  say  that  the  body  is  within  the  soul.  The 
soul  is  that  which  touches  God  ;  it  has  four  senses  of  appre- 
hension, Wit,  Memory,  Understanding  (who  is  a  lady  with 
a  certain  handmaiden,  Imagination),  and  Will.  Wit  is  the 
power  of  taking  in  things  at  all ;  then  you  remember  what 
you  have  heard  or  received,  and  set  your  understanding  to 
ravel  it  out,  and  your  will  to  act  on  it.  The  whole  of  this 
is  worked  out  with  a  quaint  intermingling  of  shrewd  "  obiter 
dicta  ",  and  a  passionate  love  to  God,  which  at  times  soars 
to  great  heights. 

God  gives  us  Himself,  and  the  fruits  of  the  spirit  are 

^  The  Scale  or  Ladder  of  Perfection.  Written  by  Walter  Hylton, 
With  Essay  by  Rev.  J.  B.  Dalgairns. 


152  ENGLISH  AND  ITALIAN   MYSTICS 

many  activities  which,  all  make  up  Rest.  Some  one  has 
defined  rest  as  "  unimpeded  activity ".  Hylton  would 
agree  with  him.  God's  rest  "  is  a  most  busy  rest '-'.  There 
are  times  of  drought  to  the  soul,  but  it  is  only  special  grace 
that  is  for  a  time  removed ;  common  grace  remains  always 
entire  to  us.  He  likens  the  journey  of  the  soul,  in  a  beau- 
tiful passage,  to  a  pilgrimage  towards  Jerusalem.  "By  some 
smaU  flashes  of  light  which  shine  through  the  chinks  of  the 
city  walls,  thou  wilt  be  able  to  see  it  long  before  thou  comest 
to  it ". 

Hylton  says  of  Prayer  that  it  is  not  the  cause  of  grace, 
but  the  means  by  which  grace  comes  into  the  soul.  Vocal 
prayer  must  not  be  too  much  abandoned  for  the  "  Prayer 
of  Quiet  ".  Concerning  sin,  he  tells  us  (surely  he  was  one 
of  the  first  to  discover  this  true  but  most  difficult  Christian 
precept)  that  we  must  hate  the  sin,  yet  love  the  sinner. 
"  Thou  shouldest  love  the  man,  be  he  ever  so  sinful,  and 
hate  the  sin  in  every  man,  whatever  he  be".  "  When  thou 
attackest  any  root  of  sin,  fix  thy  thought  more  upon  the 
God  Whom  thou  desirest  than  upon  the  sin  thou  abhorrest  ". 

He  discourages  dreams  and  visions.  Those  who  have 
them  must  be  cautious.  Of  the  Ecstasy,  he  says  that  he 
has  never  experienced  it,  but  beheves  it  to  be  possible. 
And  here  finally,  at  the  beginning  of  Part  III,  is  the  humility 
of  the  man.  "  God  knows  that  I  am  teaching  far  more  than 
I  practise,  and  I  would  not  by  these  discourses  limit  God's 
working  by  the  law  of  my  speaking.  I  wish  not  to  say  that 
God  worketh  so  in  a  soul,  and  no  otherwise.  No  ;  I  meant 
not  so.  I  hope  well  that  He  worketh  otherwise,  in  ways 
which  pass  my  wit  and  feeUng". 

(2)  "It  is  an  insufficient  criticism ",  observes  Mr.  Algar 
Thorold,!  "  that  has  led  some  to  suppose  that  the  medieval 
Church  weighed  on  the  conscience  of  Christendom  ...  as 

^  Thorold  :    The  Dialogues  of  Catherine  of  Siena,  pp.  4,  5. 


THE  MEDIEVAL  SAINT  153 

an  arbitrary  fact.  .  .  .  Probably  at  no  period  has  the 
Christian  conscience  reaUzed  more  profoundly  that  the 
whole  external  fabric  of  Catholicism,  its  sacraments,  its 
priesthood,  its  discipline,  was  but  the  phenomenal  expression, 
necessary  and  sacred  in  its  place,  of  the  Idea  of  Christianity, 
and  .  .  .  that  by  that  Idea  all  Christians,  priests,  as  well 
as  laymen,  rulers  as  well  as  subjects,  would  at  last  be  judged  ". 
There  may  be  a  slight  overstatement  of  the  case  here,  as 
regards  the  common  people,  but  it  is  certainly  true  that  the 
painters  and  poets  of  the  later  Medieval  period  had  no  hesi- 
tation in  exposing  the  faults  of  ecclesiastics  in  high  places, 
"  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  the  office  and  the 
individual ",  and  no  aversion  "  from  contemplating  the 
fate  of  the  faithless  steward".  This  phase  of  the  medieval 
mind  comes  out  most  clearly,  perhaps,  in  the  position  re- 
served by  the  Church  for  the  "  saint,"  especially  the  saint 
who  was  a  mystic.  The  official  hierarchy  was  not  con- 
sidered the  sole  agent  for  revealing  the  Divine  Will  to 
humanity.  Sabatier  points  out  with  much  force  that  the 
medieval  saint  occupied  much  the  same  position  as  the 
Prophet  in  Ancient  Israel.  Take  the  case  of  the  Blessed 
Columba  of  Rieti.  Brought  into  the  dubious  presence  of 
Pope  Alexander  VI,  she  fell  into  an  ecstasy  induced  by 
devotion  at  the  sight  of  the  supreme  Pontiff,  but  during 
this  ecstasy,  she  denounced  the  Divine  judgement  on  the 
sins  of  the  man  Rodrigo  Borgia.  To  complete  the  amazing 
story,  the  Pope  listened  to  her  attentively,  and  dismissed 
her  with  every  mark  of  reverence.  This  characteristic 
episode  forms  no  inappropriate  introduction  to  a  considera- 
tion of  the  lives  and  work  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  and 
her  namesake  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa. 

Both  were  practical  geniuses,  and  both  exhibited  the 
mystical  Hfe  in  its  extreme  form.  Catherine  of  Siena  was 
the  daughter  of  Jacopo  Benincasa,  a  dyer,  the  youngest  of 
his  twenty-five  children,  and  was  born  in  1347.    From  her 


154  ENGLISH  AND  ITALIAN   MYSTICS 

earliest  years,  improbable  as  it  sounds,  she  experienced  at 
times  the  mystical  ecstasy,  the  first  taking  place  at  the 
age  of  six,  while  at  fourteen  she  became  a  tertiary  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Dominic.  Two  desires  seized  her,  that  of  the 
"  sweetness  of  serving  God,  not  for  her  own  joy ;  and  of 
serving  her  neighbour  .  .  .  from  pure  love ".  These  twin 
longings  were  quickened  by  an  ever  deepening  sense  of  the 
terrible  corruptions  of  the  Church,  for  it  was  the  time  of 
the  "  Babylonish  captivity  "  at  Avignon,  and  by  a  passion 
for  our  Lord,  conceived  in  its  intensest  form  for  His  humanity. 
In  one  of  her  ecstasies  she  believed  herself  to  be  united  in 
spiritual  nuptials  to  Christ ;  in  another,  the  stigmata  were 
vouchsafed  to  her  as  to  St.  Francis  before  her.  Nowadays 
the  possibility  of  the  stigmata  to  a  highly  wrought  nature 
much  given  to  pondering  over  the  details  of  the  Passion  is 
recognized,  but  with  Catherine  such  meditations  on  the 
Person  of  the  Lord  were  redeemed  from  what  might  have 
been  merely  morbid  and  fanciful,  first,  by  the  depth  and 
clearness  of  her  thoughts  with  regard  to  the  love  of  God  as 
displayed  in  the  Passion,  thoughts  such  as  "  Nails  would 
not  have  held  the  God-man  fast  to  the  cross  had  not  love 
held  Him  therej",  ^  and,  secondly,  by  the  practical  work 
for  the  Church  to  which  she  conceived  herself  bound  by  her 
mystical  nuptials.  She  felt  herself  pledged  "  to  do  man 
fully  and  without  hesitation  "  whatever  task  was  laid  upon 
her,  and  the  result  was  an  act  of  momentous  courage  and 
of  lasting  effect  upon  the  Church's  destinies.  She  resolved 
to  get  the  Pope  away  from  the  sumptuous  court  of  Avignon, 
with  its  deadly  influences  of  sloth  and  luxury,  and  its 
political  subservience  to  the  French  King,  back  to  Italy 
and  Rome  and  a  true  leadership  of  the  spiritual  world. 
She  had,  it  is  true,  no  Alexander  VI.  to  contend  with ;  but 
Gregory  XI,  in  spite  of  much  personal  charm,  was  vacillating 

^  V.  D.  Scudder  :  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  as  seen  in  her  Letters,  p.  8. 


ST.   CATHERINE  OF  SIENA  155 

and  cowardly,  and  extremely  unlikely  to  exchange  the  easy- 
going life  of  pleasure  at  Avignon  for  the  risks  and  uncer- 
tainties, however  heroic,  of  Papal  rule  in  turbulent  Rome. 
First,  she  wrote  to  those  who  might  be  most  influential  in 
the  Pope's  circle.  "  You  and  the  Holy  Father  ",  she  told 
one  such,  "  ought  to  toil  and  do  what  you  can  to  get  rid  of 
the  wolfish  shepherds  who  care  for  nothing  :but  eating,  and 
fine  palaces,  and  big  horses.  .  .  .  Tell  the  Holy  Father 
to  put  an  end  to  such  iniquities.  And  when  the  time  comes 
to  make  priests  or  cardinals,  let  them  not  be  chosen  through 
flatteries  or  money  or  simony  ".^  Finding  that  little  good 
resulted,  she  determined  to  do  what  Columba  of  Rieti  had 
done,  and  to  visit  the  Pope  in  his  own  Court.  In  1366,  St. 
Bridget  of  Sweden  had  followed  up  a  Divine  intimation 
and  had  gone  to  Avignon  to  urge  Urban  V  to  return  to 
Rome.  Bridget  had  been  unsuccessful,  but  Catherine  re- 
solved to  try  again  the  effect  of  personal  pleading  on  the 
more  malleable  nature  of  Gregory  XI.  But  first  she  wrote 
to  him.  Curious  letters  they  were,  for  the  sternness  of  the 
prophetess  struggled  in  her  with  an  unmistakable  personal 
fondness  for  the  man  whom  she  called  by  turns  "  venerable 
father  ",  and  "  sweetest  '  Babbo  '  mine  ",  "  sweet  Christ 
on  earth  ".  Yet  she  does  not  mince  matters.  "  Quench  ", 
she  writes,  "  this  perverse  and  perilous  self-love  in  yourself 
...  be  so  true  and  good  a  shepherd  that  if  you  had  a 
hundred  thousand  lives  you  would  be  ready  to  give  them 
all  for  the  honour  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  men.  .  .  . 
Temporal  things  are  failing  you  from  no  other  cause  than 
from  your  neglect  of  the  spiritual".  2  At  another  time 
she  told  him  that  he  should  strive  to  follow  his  namesake, 
Gregory  the  Great,  "  it  will  be  as  possible  for  you  to  quench 
self-love'^as  it  was  for  him ".  Then  at  last,  the  intrepid 
dyer's  daughter  went  to  Avignon,  overcame  all  obstacles, 

*  Si.  Catherine  of  Siena,  as  seen  in  her  Letters,  p.  115. 

*  lb.  p.  131. 


156  ENGLISH  AND  ITALIAN  MYSTICS 

and  prevailed  on  the  vacillating  Pope  to  dare  aU,  and  to 
return  to  Rome.  Perhaps  one  of  the  greatest  gifts  that 
Catherine  had  was  the  power  to  discern  the  good  or  strength 
in  an  unpromising  character  and  to  draw  it  out.  Certainly, 
it  was  by  some  such  means  that  she  was  instrumental  in 
ending  the  disgraceful  Avignon  "  Captivity ".  The  con- 
venient dictum  of  the  Avignonese  doctors,  "  Ubi  Papa,  ibi 
Roma  ",  ceased  to  have  a  meaning.  Catherine  died  in  1380, 
leaving  behind  her  one  great  mystical  classic,  the  "  Divine 
Dialogue",  in  which  the  soul  and  the  "  Eternal  God  "  hold 
converse.  Despite  the  alleged  circumstance  of  the  "  Dia- 
logues "  that  they  were  dictated  to  her  secretary  when  she 
was  in  ecstasy,  they  deal  largely  with  a  very  practical 
Christianity.  They  have  one  characteristic  of  vision,  as 
apart  from  ecstasy,  that  with  much  that  is  exquisite  and 
true  a  certain  grotesquerie  in  the  minghng  of  metaphors 
is  at  times  apparent.  Things  are  evidently  seen  through 
each  other. 

Mysticism,  in  the  next,  the  fifteenth  century,  was  repre- 
sented in  Italy  by  Catherine  of  Genoa,  whose  life  and  teach- 
ing has  been  taken  for  the  text  of  an  authoritative  analysis 
of  Mysticism  by  Baron  von  Hiigel.^  Her  genius  has  a 
certain  connective  link  with  the  Franciscan  ideals,  through 
the  influence  exercised  upon  her  in  early  life  by  Jacopone 
da  Todi,  and  she  had  all  Francis'  tender  sympathy  with 
animals  and  flowers.  "  She  was  most  compassionate  to- 
wards all  creatures  ;  so  that,  if  an  animal  were  killed  or  a 
tree  cut  down,  she  could  hardly  bear  to  see  them  lose  that 
being  which  God  has  given  them  ".^  In  her  too  there  was 
the  most  vivid  realization  of  the  two  sides  of  the  God-ward 
life— the  unio  mystica,  and  the  practical  service  of  those 
around  her.     Herself  of  noble  birth,  she  was  married  to  a 

^  The  Mystical  Element  of  Religion,  2  vols. 

2  Von  Hiigel  :    quoted  from  the  "  Vita,"  vol.   i,  p.   163. 


ST.   CATHERINE  OF  GENOA  157 

man  of  high  position,  but,  at  the  time  of  the  marriage,  of 
worthless  character,  GiuHano  Adorno.  For  five  years, 
neglected  by  her  husband,  she  lived  a  dreary  and  loveless 
life,  but  the  experience  was  preparative  to  a  vast  change. 
Driven  in  on  herself,  and  disillusioned  as  to  the  pleasures 
of  a  worldly  round  of  ostentation  and  gaiety  with  which 
she  had  never  been  enamoured,  her  thoughts  turned  more 
and  more  towards  God.  Her  actual  conversion  has,  in  one 
particular,  a  singular  resemblance  to  that  of  Julian  of  Nor- 
wich. She  prayed,  under  the  condition  of  God's  Will,  for 
a  three  months'  illness,  and  this  came  to  pass,  though,  as 
it  would  seem,  in  the  shape  of  mental  rather  than  of  physical 
affliction.  But  already  her  husband's  fortune  had  failed 
him,  and  though  the  accounts  of  their  worldly  misfortunes 
are,  as  is  the  case  with  other  events  in  Catherine's  Ufe, 
rather  conflicting,  Giuhano,  also  now  a  converted  man, 
and  his  wife  moved  into  a  little  artisan  dwelling  in  the 
poorer  quarter  of  the  town,  close  to  the  great  Hospital 
of  the  Pammatone,  founded  by  Bartolommeo  Bosco,  a 
Genoese  merchant  prince,  fifty  years  previously.  Here,  in 
visiting  and  tending  the  sick  in  the  130  beds  of  the  Hospital, 
in  looking  after  the  wants  of  roo  foundhng  girls,  also  trained 
in  the  Institution,  and  in  ministering  to  the  sick  and  the 
poor  of  the  squalid  neighbourhood,  Giuliano  and  Catherine 
lived  out  their  useful  and  devoted  years.  He  became  a 
Tertiary  of  the  Franciscan  Order  ;  but  it  is  remarkable  that 
Catherine,  with  all  her  early  drawing  to  the  life  of  a  religious, 
never  took  any  vows  herself.  Of  the  practical  and  ever 
increasing  usefulness  of  her  life  there  can  be  no  doubt  what- 
soever, nor  of  its  attractive  capacity  for  warm  friendships. 
Yet  all  this  was  accompanied  for  years,  as  Baron  von  Hiigel 
carefully  describes,  by  the  most  singular  psychopathic 
states.  One  of  the  most  distinctive  marks  of  her  spiritual 
hfe  was  a  longing  desire  for  the  Holy  Communion — she 
seems  to  have  been  a  daily  communicant  for  nearly  the 


158  ENGLISH  AND  ITALIAN  MYSTICS 

entire  period  from  her  conversion  in  1474  to  her  death  in 

1 5 10 — and  her  communions  were  followed  often  by  states 
of  complete  absorption  in  prayer  lasting  for  hours,  "  trans- 
parently real  and  sincere,  and.  .  .  so  swift  and  spontane- 
ous as  to  appear  quasi-involuntary".^  These  absorptions 
were  primarily  spiritual,  and  may  be  taken  as  the  first 
decisive  appearance  in  the  mystical  Hfe  of  the  Prayer  of 
Quiet  or  of  Union.  Another  distinguishing  mark  of  Cath- 
erine's experience  was  the  capacity  for  prolonged  and 
again  quasi-involuntary  fasts.  In  each  case,  that  of  the 
fast  or  of  the  absorption,  it  was  the — to  her — reahzed 
i^resence  or  Will  of  our  Lord  that  was  the  impelling  force. 
A  third  characteristic  may  also  be  noted,  as  it  is  one  that 
links  her  thought  to  that  of  the  great  Spanish  mystics  of 
the  next  age.  She  had  a  strong  psycho-physical  smell- 
and-taste  impression,  most  pleasurable,  which  was  wont 
to  come  to  her  in  connexion  with  her  reception  of  the  Eucha- 
rist. "  Having  on  one  occasion  received  Holy  Communion, 
so  much  odour  and  sweetness  came  to  her,  that  she  seemed 
to  be  in  Paradise.  Whence,  feeling  this,  she  straightway 
turned  towards  her  Love  and  said  :  '  O  Love,  dost  Thou 
perhaps  intend  to  draw  me  to  Thyself  with  these  savours  ? 
I  want  them  not,  since  I  want  nothing  but  Thee  alone,  and 
all  of  Thee '.  Here,  then,  she  turns  away  from  and  trans- 
cends, precisely  as  St.  John  of  the  Cross  was  soon  to  insist 
so  strongly  that  we  should  do,  the  sensible  and  immediate, 
and  reaches  on  to  the  spiritual,  ultimate,  and  personal  ".^ 

^  See  Von  Hugel :  The  Mystical  Element  in  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp. 
227-229. 

2  Von  Hiigel,  ib.  p.  180,  who  quotes  from  the  "  Vita  «  Dottrina  " 
by  Marabotto  and  Vernazza. 


CHAPTER    IX 

Spanish  and    French  Mystics 

THE  coming  of  the  Reformation  brought  about  nothing 
less  than  a  revolution  in  the  spiritual  world.  Just 
as  the  Renaissance,  with  its  influx  of  new  light  and  know- 
ledge in  every  department  of  Art,  Science,  and  Letters, 
changed  for  ever  the  outlook  on  intellectual  and  material 
processes,  radically,  but  with  such  abruptness  that  even 
now  we,  who  have  dwelt  for  more  than  three  centuries  in 
the  midst  of  "  new^  heavens  and  a  new  earth  ",  still  think 
familiarly  in  the  terms  of  that  old  cosmos  of  the  medieval 
conception,  so  the  Reformation,  child  of  the  Renaissance, 
wrought  its  own  abiding  changes  in  the  sphere  of  religious 
thought.  Not  the  least  striking  of  these  changes  was  wit- 
nessed in  the  realm  of  Mysticism  which  itself,  as  we  have 
seen,  contributed  not  a  little  by  way  of  preparation  to  the 
tremendous  crisis  in  faith  and  spiritual  "  customary  law  " 
which  was  finally  precipitated  by  other  and  rougher  means 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  Putting  it  broadly,  the  results 
of  the  Reformation  on  Mysticism  were  twofold. 

(i)  In  the  first  place,  as  the  whole  of  the  Western  reli- 
gious world  was  split  up  into  two  camps,  one  owning  obedi- 
ence to  the  Papacy,  the  other  withholding  it,  so  it  was  with 
Mysticism.  Henceforth  we  have  two  schools  of  mystics, 
and  the  distinction  between  them  does  not  merely  lie  in 
the  fact  that  the  one  retained  the  old  allegiance,  while  the 
other  dispensed  with  it.     Each  retained,   and   each   dis- 

159 


i6o  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH  MYSTICS 

pensed  with  a  great  deal  besides.  It  will  have  been  noticed 
that  later  medieval  Mysticism  a  good  deal  resembled  the 
gradual  building  up  of — say — English  case  law.  Nearly 
every  mystic  had  his  scheme  of  the  inner  life,  and  nearly 
every  mystic,  whilst  true  to  the  general  laws  of  the  Scala 
Perfectionis  laid  down  by  his  predecessors,  added  something 
of  his  own,  drawn  from  his  particular  experience.  Certain 
features,  not  to  recapitulate  overmuch,  had  become  common 
and  recognized  principles.  In  one  form  or  another  we  find 
the  three  stages  of  Ascent  everywhere,  Purgatio,  Illuminatio, 
Contemplatio :  from  Pseudo-Dionysius  onwards  the  Via 
Negativa  is,  if  not  always  absolutely  enjoined,  still  nearly 
always  traceable  in  the  background  of  mystic  thought ; 
whUe  other  ideas  indigenous  to  the  mystical  mind  are  those 
of  the  Divine  Darkness,  and  of  the  possibility  or  actuality 
of  the  Ecstasy  as  the  culmination  of  the  Unio  Mystica  on 
earth.  This  tendency  to  formulate,  to  make  diagrams 
of  the  most  intimate  and  veiled  pathways  and  shrines  of 
the  spirit,  was  accentuated  by  the  Scholastics,  who  incor- 
porated the  mystical  experience  within  the  body  of  recog- 
nized and  official  theology,  and  was,  of  course,  in  large 
measure  the  outcome  of  the  legalizing,  system-loving  spirit 
of  the  Latin  Church.  Now  the  outstanding  difference  after 
the  Reformation  between  the  schools  of  Mysticism  which 
adhered  to  the  Latin  obedience,  and  those  mystics  who  no 
longer  recognized  it,  was  just  this,  that  the  former  pre- 
served and  even  accentuated  the  idea  of  the  scheme,  within 
whose  bounds  their  mystical  faculty  was  to  work  itself  out, 
while  with  the  latter  all  notion  of  a  plan,  a  ladder,  a  scale 
of  progress  suddenly  disappeared.  The  record  of  their 
mystical  life  becomes  the  record  of  pure,  simple  feeling,  of 
intimate  communion  and  touch  with  the  Eternal  Life.  In 
England  this  was  especially  noticeable,  and  the  new  free- 
dom vented  itself  in  a  new  capacity  of  intellect,  a  facility 
for  suggestive  and  pregnant  expression.     To  a  great  degree, 


POST-REFORMATION   CONDITIONS  i6i 

and  perhaps  increasingly  as  time  went  on,  Mysticism  found 
its  votaries  and  prophets  among  the  poets. 

(2)  On  the  other  hand,  as  was  said,  the  older  Mysticism 
outhned,  schemed,  circumscribed,  continued  its  course,  also 
in  its  own  province  most  fruitful  and  always,  to  a  certain 
class  of  mind,  peculiarly  helpful,  in  allegiance  to  the  Latin 
Church.  But  more.  After  the  first  shock  of  the  Reforma- 
tion had  passed,  the  great  need  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  was  internal  reform  and  reconstruction,  if  ever  it 
were  to  regain  possession  or  partial  possession  of  the  Euro- 
pean heritage  which  it  had  so  nearly  lost.  So  we  find,  not 
unexpectedly,  the  great  Catholic  mystics  of  the  sixteenth 
century — what  is  known  as  the  Spanish  school — busily 
engaged,  sometimes  against  enormous  odds,  in  producing 
order  out  of  chaos,  a  kind  of  military  and  chivalrous  obedi- 
ence to  rules  that  should  dominate  body,  intellect,  con- 
science and  heart  alike,  instead  of  the  worldly  and  luxurious 
laissez-faire  that  numbed  the  Church  of  their  day.  Take 
Ignatius  Loyola,  or  St.  Teresa,  or  John  of  the  Cross,  all  are 
of  the  same  type  as  of  the  same  nationality,  "  outwardly 
cumbered  with  much  serving,  observant  of  an  infinitude 
of  tiresome  details,  composing  rules,  setting  up  foundations, 
neglecting  no  aspect  of  their  business  which  could  conduce 
to  its  practical  success,  yet  '  altogether  dwelling  in  God  in 
restful  fruition '".1  All  three  were  distinctively  Spanish 
in  mind  and  mood,  yet  the  work  of  the  first  changed  the 
face  of  half  Europe  once  again  and,  more  than  any  other 
agency,  brought  about — by  strenuous  work  opposed  to 
work,  skilled  knowledge  to  knowledge,  and  a  burning  inner 
devotion, — ^what  is  known  as  the  Counter-Reformation  in 
Germany,  Bohemia,  and  Austria ;  while  the  words  and 
character  of  St.  Teresa  became  a  classical  and  secular  influ- 
ence for  the  whole  Church  of  Christ.  It  is  of  her  and  of 
her  disciple,  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  that  we  should  here  take 

^  E.  Underbill :    Mysticism,  p.  523. 
M.C.  M 


i62  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH  MYSTICS 

some  account,  partly  for  the  reasons  we  have  noticed,  and 
partly  as  a  matter  of  due  sequence,  because  Spanish  Mystic- 
ism, though  so  far-reaching  in  its  after  influence,  was  reaUy 
a  IfLte  flowering,  out  of  due  time,  of  medieval  Mysticism. 

St.  Teresa  was  born  at  Avila  in  1515,  just  two  years 
before  Martin  Luther,  who  once,  at  any  rate,  when  stirred 
to  wrath  by  the  untrammelled  excesses  of  Carlstadt's 
mysticism,  sought  to  dispose  of  the  whole  mystical  founda- 
tion by  declaring,  "  Human  nature  could  not  survive  the 
least  syllable  of  the  Divine  utterance.  God  addresses  man 
through  men,  because  we  could  not  endure  His  speaking 
to  us  without  medium  ".  Teresa  would  have  been  more  in 
agreement  with  her  great  "contemporary  when  he  wrote  his 
golden  sentence,  "  Tenta  ergo  ut  ne  Jesum  quidem  audias 
gloriosum,  nisi  videris  prius  crucifixum  ".^  There  was, 
after  all,  something  in  common  between  those  two  ardent 
natures,  both  born  reformers  ;  for  there  was  always  a  man- 
like quality  in  Teresa,  partly,  no  doubt,  an  inheritance  from 
a  long  line  of  noble  Castilian  ancestors,  which  came  out  in 
such  exhortations  to  the  nuns  of  her  reformed  Carmelite 
foundation  as,  "I  would  have  you,  my  daughters,  to  be 
brave  and  valiant  men",  and  her  descriptions  of  some  rap- 
tures as  "  raptures  of  Feminine  Weakness  ". 

The  life  of  St.  Teresa,  which,  Dr.  Inge  says  curiously, 
"  is  more  interesting  than  her  teaching  ",2  will  always,  of 
course,  affect  differently  constituted  minds  in  different 
ways.  Those  who  wish  it  concisely  and  vividly  told,  but 
with  a  distempered  malice  rare  even  in  his  singular  work, 
will  find  it,  with  accompanying  discussions,  in  Vaughan's 


^  "  Strive  that  thou  learn  not  of  even  Jesus  Himself  as  glorified, 
unless  first  thou  hast  known  Him  as  crucified  ". 

2  Inge  :  Christian  Mysticism,  p.  218.  Cf.  E.  Underhill's  exhaus- 
tive work  on  Mysticism,  in  which  quotations  from  St.  Teresa's  works 
and  allusions  to  her  teaching  outnunaber  the  references  to  any  other 
individual  mystic. 


MYSTICS  OF  THE   LATIN   OBEDIENCE      163 

"  Hours  with  the  Mystics  ".^  We  read  there  of  her  childHke 
enthusiasm  when  a  girl  to  set  out  by  herself  for  Africa  to 
convert  the  Moors  ;  of  her  early  visions  and  raptures,  of 
her  subservience  to  her  confessors,  her  meticulous  self- 
analysis  in  her  autobiography,  the  ready  and  incessant  use 
made  of  her  as  its  tool  by  the  Roman  Church  in  the  work  of 
setting  up  far  and  wide  her  reformed  "  discalced  "  Carmelite 
houses.  We  are  told  of  her,  it  is  true,  as  the  great  exponent 
and  expert  with  regard  to  the  Prayer  of  Quiet,  but  we  are 
bidden  in  an  aside  to  note  how  the  Church  of  Rome  could 
commend  and  beautify  such  "  quietistic  "  mystics  as  were 
thoroughly  obedient  to  its  system  of  the  confessional  and 
the  Sacraments,  whilst  for  such,  later,  as  Molinos  or  Madame 
Guyon,  who  showed  themselves  at  all  restive  to  its  control, 
it  had  nothing  but  cold  disapproval  or  direct  repression. 
Now  there  is  some  truth  in  all  this.  Teresa  was  for  years 
a  visionary,  and  not  all  her  visions  were  of  equal  validity. 
She  was  certainly  one  of  the  agents  in  the  great  reform  move- 
ment that  took  place  within  the  Roman  Church,  and  her 
mysticism  was  a  mysticism  within  stricter  bounds  than 
those  permitted  to  pre-Reformation  mystics.  The  confes- 
sional acquired  vastly  increased  scope  and  authority  in  the 
management  of  the  individual  life  owing  to  the  rise  of  the 
Jesuit  Order.  Teresa  herself  chose  Jesuit  direction  in  the 
later  years  of  her  life,  and  with  many  souls,  though  em- 
phatically not  with  hers,  such  direction  tended  towards 
a  self-analysis  at  once  morbid  and  profitless.  Again,  St, 
Teresa  learned  the  element  of  the  Prayer  of  Quiet  from  her 
first  director,  the  Franciscan  mystic,  St.  Peter  of  Alcantara, 
and  it  is  in  regard  to  the  development  and  definition  of 
this  "  orison  "  that  her  teaching  as  a  mystic  is  profoundly 
important.  As  for  the  distinction  that  her  Church  made 
between  Quietist  mystics  of  seemingly  closely  resembling 
types,  some  credit  must  be  given  to  the  discernment  of  a 
^  Op.  cit.  bk.  ix.  chs.  i  and  2. 


i64  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH   MYSTICS 

Church  which  had  inherited  and  exercised  for  so  many 
centuries  precisely  the  quaHties  of  discrimination  peculiar 
to  a  statesmanship  that  can  gauge  and  measure  what  in 
human  belief  is  safe  or  unsafe  to  the  body  politic  ;  and 
some  allowance  made  for  the  additional  caution  exercised 
by  that  Church  after  experiencing  the  tremendous  shock 
and  upheaval  of  the  Reformation  crisis. 

Later  and  more  sympathetic  accounts  than  Vaughan's 
have  made  us  familiar  with  the  real  Santa  Teresa  whose 
warm  and  vigorous  personality,  humorous  common  sense 
— she  could  not  bear  solemnity  and  sanctimoniousness — 
practical  usefulness — "  she  was  an  admirable  housewife  and 
declared  that  she  found  her  God  very  easily  amongst  the 
pots  and  pans  "  ^ — and  gifts  as  organiser  and  reformer  made 
her  so  great  a  power  in  her  generation  ;  the  Teresa,  again, 
whose  burning  love  for  her  Lord  compelled  the  enthusiastic 
admiration  of  our  English  poet,  Crashaw,  and  profoundly 
modulated  his  own  spiritual  life.  Her  actual  life  may  be 
divided  into  three  periods,  the  first,  one  of  Vision  ;  the 
second,  of  her  Quietistic  experience,  and  teaching  ;  the 
third,  arising  from  the  second,  of  her  immense  and  prac- 
tical activities.  The  first  may  be  dismissed  m  a  very  few 
words,  though  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  it  was  prefaced 
by  a  conversion  which  occurred  through  her  reading  in  the 
Confessions  of  St.  Augustine  how  he  heard  the  voice,  "  Tolle, 
lege."  "  When  I  read,"  she  says,  "  how  he  heard  the 
\oice  in  the  garden,  it  was  just  as  if  the  Lord  called  me  ". 
This  shews  how  imitatively  impressionable  her  mind  was, 
though  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  sincerity  with 
which  she  recalled  the  many  visions  that  followed,  especially 
since,  like  Joseph  with  his  brethren,  she  found  herself  an 
object  of  suspicion  and  dislike  owing  to  these  special  privi- 
leges. The  \dsions  were  not  ecstasies  ;  she  heard  "  locu- 
tions ",  she  saw  "  the  sacred  Humanity  ".  But,  as  many 
1  G.  Cunninghame  Graham  :  Santa  Teresa,  vol.  i.  p.  399. 


ST.  TERESA  165 

of  the  mystics  have  taught,  such  phenomena  in  the  spiritual 
Hfe,  if  actual  (and  at  times  Teresa  was  in  doubt  of  her 
own  experiences)  are  only  vouchsafed  to  beginners. 

The  middle  part  of  her  life  was  that  during  which  her 
doctrines  of  Quietism  and  of  the  modes  of  Prayer  connected 
therewith  were  fully  developed.  We  are  introduced  to 
the  subject  by  an  allegory.  "  Our  soul ",  says  Teresa,  "  is 
like  a  garden,  rough  and  unfruitful,  out  of  which  God  plucks 
the  weeds,  and  plants  flowers,  which  we  have  to  water  by 
prayer.  There  are  four  ways  of  doing  this — First,  by  draw- 
ing the  water  from  a  well ;  this  is  the  earliest  and  most 
laborious  process.  Secondly,  by  a  water-wheel  which  has 
its  rim  hung  round  with  little  buckets.  Third,  by  causing 
a  stream  to  flow  through  it.  Fourth,  by  rain  from  heaven  ". 
The  first  is  ordinary  prayer.  The  second  is  the  prayer  of 
Quiet,  "  when  the  soul  understands  that  God  is  so  near  to 
her  that  she  need  not  talk  to  Him  ".  "In  this  state  ", 
both  Vaiighan  and  Dr.  Inge  comment  in  almost  identical 
phrase,  "  the  Will  is  absorbed,  but  the  Understanding  and 
Memory  may  still  be  active  ".  It  is  curious  to  note  that 
Vaughan  insists  that  Teresa  was  "  utterly  ignorant  of  the 
past  career  of  Mystical  Theology,  hears,  indeed,  of  a  time- 
honoured  division  of  the  Mystical  process  into  Purgative, 
Illuminative  and  Unitive ;  but  .  .  .  does  not  adopt  the 
scheme.  .  .  .  The  philosophic  element  is  absent  altogether 
from  her  mysticism  ".^  This  is  something  of  an  exaggera- 
tion. Dr.  Inge  justly  points  out  that  by  her  mention  of 
the  Will,  the  Understanding,  and  the  Memory,  Teresa  makes 
these  the  three  faculties  of  the  soul,  and  so  shews  herself 
perfectly  aware  of  the  scholastic  philosophy.'     Moreover, 

^  Vaughan,  op.  cit.  bk.  ix.  ch.  3  ;  cf.  Inge,  p.  221. 

*  Fr.  Zimmerman,  however,  in  his  Prefatory  Essay  to  "  The 
Ascent  of  Mount  Cartnel "  by  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  attributes 
Teresa's  correctness  in  these  matters  to  her  habit  of  referring  to  her 
director  and  other  theologians  for  enhghtenment,  pp.  S,  g. 


i66  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH  MYSTICS 

the  three  stages  of  the  Mystic  Hfe  appear  pretty  plainly, 
if  not  in  set  terms,  in  her  experiences.  To  return  :  the 
third  stage  is  the  Prayer  of  Union,  or  Contemplation,  "  a 
sleep  of  the  faculties,  which  are  not  entirely  suspended,  nor 
yet  do  they  understand  how  they  work  ".  God  becomes 
as  it  were  the  Gardener  of  the  soul,  and  works  through  its 
faculties,  using  them  ;  this  state  is  distinguished  by  the 
peculiar  infallible  certainty  of  something  communicated 
or  received,  which  we  have  noted  as  one  of  the  mystical 
marks.  There  is  a  fourth  state  still,  which  was  wholly  in- 
describable— another  mystical  "  note  ",  All  that  she  could 
say  was  :  "  The  Lord  said  these  words  to  me  ;  The  soul 
unmakes  herself  to  bring  herself  closer  to  Me.  It  is  no  more 
she  that  lives,  but  I  ".  Either  of  these  last  states  might  be 
described  as  the  Ecstasy  or  Rapture,  and  it  is  somewhat 
difficult  to  distinguish  between  them.  But  St.  Teresa  felt 
the  distinction  evidently,  and  laboured  to  express  it.  But 
what  is  above  all  things  noticeable  in  the  last  three  states 
of  "  orison  "  is  the  continuous  growth  throughout  of  sur- 
render, passivity,  motionlessness.  In  Teresa's  case  it  had 
even  physical  as  well  as  psychical  effects.  The  great  school 
of  Quietism  had  been  inaugurated,  and  Teresa  was  certainly 
its  chief  instructress,  however  much  she  may  have  imbibed 
from  Peter  of  Alcantara,  or  Francis  of  Osuna.  The  following 
quotations  from  her  own  description  of  the  spiritual  experi- 
ence referred  to  will  explain  better  than  anything  else  the 
new  principle.  "  In  this  state  there  is  no  sense  of  anything  ; 
only  fruition,  without  understanding  what  that  may  be, 
the  fruition  of  which  is  granted.  It  is  understood  that  the 
fruition  is  of  a  certain  good,  containing  in  itself  aU  good 
together  at  once  ;  but  this  good  is  not  comprehended.  .  .  . 
But  this  state  of  complete  absorption,  together  with  the 
utter  rest  of  the  imagination  .  .  .  lasts  only  for  a  short 
time  ;  though  the  faculties  do  not  so  completely  recover 
themselves  as  not  to  be  for  some  hours  afterwards  in  some 


ST.   JOHN   OF  THE   CROSS  167 

disorder.  ...  It  cannot  be  more  clearly  described,  because 
what  then  takes  place  is  so  obscure.  All  I  am  able  to  say 
is,  that  the  soul  is  represented  as  being  close  to  God  ;  and 
that  there  abides  a  conviction  thereof  so  certain  and  strong 
that  it  cannot  possibly  help  believing  so.  All  the  faculties 
fail  now,  and  are  suspended  in  such  a  way  that  .  .  .  their 
operations  cannot  be  traced.  The  will  must  be  fully  occu- 
pied in  loving,  but  it  understands  not  how  it  loves  ;  the 
understanding,  if  it  understands,  does  not  understand  how 
it  understands."  Again,  "  the  soul  is  entirely  asleep  as 
regards  herself  and  earthly  things.  During  the  short  time 
the  union  lasts  she  is,  as  it  were,  deprived  of  all  feeling,  and, 
though  she  wishes  it,  can  think  of  nothing  .  .  .  she  is,  as 
it  were,  absolutely  dead  to  the  world,  the  better  to  live  in 
God".i 

Clearly,  we  are  not  far  from  St.  John  of  the  Cross  and 
his  Dark  Night  of  the  Soul.  Not  to  be  repelled  by  all  this, 
we  have  to  remember  that  it  possesses  all  the  marks  of  a 
veritable  psychological  experience,  all  the  notes  of  a  true 
-mystical  experience,  and  that  its  results  were  not  nullity, 
or  lazy  absorption  in  self,  but  a  peculiarly  active  period 
of  practical  and  lasting  work  for  the  Church. 

This  in  part  took  the  form  of  carefully  noting  down  her 
experiences,  which  she  did  in  three  works,  her  "  Life  ", 
the  "  Way  of  Perfection  ",  and  the  "  Interior  Castle  ".  In 
part,  again,  it  resulted  in  her  founding  a  small  convent  where 
the  ancient  Carmelite  rule  might  be  observed  in  all  its 
pristine  strictness.  The  General  of  the  Order  approved 
and  also  commissioned  her  to  found  two  houses  of  Reformed 
or  "  Discalced  "  ^^  Friars  as  well.  At  this  time  she  first 
met  John  de  Yepes. 

John,  unlike  herself,  was  born  of  poor  parentage.     He 

^  Quoted  from  E.  Underhill  :    Mysticism,  p.  425. 
2  "Discalced  "  signifies  tlie  return  from  the  shoe  to  the  ancient 
sandal,  a  change  symbolical  of  much  more. 


i68  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH  MYSTICS 

was  in  his  twenty-sixth  year  when,  in  1567,  he  encountered 
St.  Teresa.  Dissatisfied  with  the  many  mitigations  of  the 
Carmehte  rule  which  he  had  followed  since  he  was  twenty- 
one,  he  was  on  the  very  point  of  exchanging  this  Order  for 
the  Carthusian,  when  the  great  opportunity  of  his  life  came. 
Instead  of  leaving  his  Order,  he  found  himself  urged  by 
Teresa,  and  commissioned  by  the  Papal  Nuncio,  to  reform 
it.  John  was  a  person,  "  small  in  body,  but  great  in  soul  ", 
and  "distinguished  by  surpassing  austerity  and  zeal".i 
The  Reform  spread  rapidly :  under  the  fostering  care  of 
Teresa  and  of  John,  who  became  her  confessor,  convents 
of  the  Reformed  rule  sprang  up  everywhere.  Too  fast,  in 
fact.  The  best  monks  in  other  houses  naturally  left  them 
for  the  new  and  stricter  foundations.  Superiors  became  first 
disheartened  and  annoyed,  then  openly  hostile,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  work,  in  1575,  the  Nuncio,  its  great  protector, 
died,  leaving  in  possession  of  the  field  a  General  of  the  Order 
whose  regulations  he  had  several  times  overruled.  John 
was  at  Avila  and  was  suddenly  arrested  by  the  Calced 
Carmelites,  and  hurried  off  as  a  rebel  to  the  Order  to  a  dark 
and  stifling  jail  at  Toledo.  There  he  undersvent  a  martyr- 
dom of  cruel  treatment  for  more  than  eight  months.  It 
would  seem  almost  impossible  that  men  pledged  to  the 
religious  life  could  have  found  it  in  them  to  treat  a  fellow- 
friar,  however  interfering  and  contumacious  they  probably 
thought  him,  with  such  studied  cruelty  as  was  visited  on 
poor  John  of  the  Cross  from  day  to  day.  2  Finally,  he 
effected  his  escape,  and  the  tide  of  ecclesiastical  opinion 
turned  slowly  in  his  favour.     He  busied  himself  in  his  work 

■*■  Thus  Vaughan  :  op.  cit.  bk.  ix.  ch.  3,  who  manifests  a  sincere 
admiration  for  John  of  the  Cross.  Elsewhere  he  says,  "  The  mysti- 
cism of  John  takes  the  very  highest  ground.  .  .  .  He  pursues  [his  goal] 
unfaltering,  with  a  holy  ardour.  .  .  .  He  displayed  in  suffering 
and  in  action  a  self-sacrificing  heroism  which  could  only  spring  from 
a  devout  and  a  profound  conviction  ". 

2  David  Lewis  :    Lije  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  pp.  79-101. 


THE   "DARK  NIGHT   OF  THE   SOUL"       169 

as  a  reformer  till  the  end,  and  that  work  was  constantly 
chequered  by  opposition  and  by  increasing  bodily  debility. 
At  the  very  end,  he  was  taken  during  his  last  sickness  to  a 
convent  whose  prior  was  in  enmity  to  him,  and  took  care 
to  show  it,  an  enmity  in  no  way  reciprocated  by  St.  John, 
whose  spiritual  record  bears  an  exquisite  resemblance  to  the 
character  of  his  Lord  in  his  steady  forgiveness  of  every 
personal  injury  and  slight.  A  great  part  of  his  life  was 
passed  under  the  shadow  of  misunderstanding  and  the 
menace  or  reality  of  personal  violence,  but  if  ever  a  man 
took  to  heart  the  words  of  Christ  with  regard  to  volimtary 
cross-bearing,  it  was  St.  John,  and  it  is  as  St.  John  of  the 
Cross,  consequently,  that  his  name  and  fame  have  come 
down  to  us. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  something  of  the  darkness  and 
dereliction  of  the  cell  of  Toledo,  the  cell  in  which  he  composed 
his  world-famous  spiritual  elegy,  "  The  Song  of  the  Obscure 
Night ",  should  appear  in  his  work  ?  Yet  to  St.  John  it 
was  still,  despite  suffering  and  sighing,  his  "  happy  lot  ". 
"  Oh  !  guiding  night !  "  he  cries,  "  Oh  !  night  more  lovely 
than  the  dawn  !  Oh  !  night  that  hast  united  the  Lover 
with  His  loved  !  "  What,  then,  is  St.  John's  doctrine  of 
the  "  Night  of  the  soul  "  ? 

Let  us  take  his  own  words.  "  The  journey  of  the  soul  to 
the  Divine  Union  is  called  night  for  three  reasons.  The  first 
is  derived  from  the  point  from  which  the  soul  sets  out,  the 
privation  of  the  desire  of  all  pleasure  in  all  the  things  of  this 
world,  by  detachment  therefrom.  This  is  as  night  for  every 
desire  and  sense  of  man.  The  second,  from  the  road  by 
which  it  travels  ;  that  is  faith,  for  faith  is  obscure,  like 
night,  to  the  understanding.  The  third,  from  the  goal  to 
which  it  tends,  God,  incomprehensible  and  infinite,  who 
is  in  this  life  as  night  to  the  soul".^    The  only  sensible 

^  The  Ascent  of  Mount  Carmel,  transl.  by  David  Lewis,  p.    11. 


170  SPANISH  AND   FRENCH  MYSTICS 

desire  which  God  permits  is  that  of  obedience  to  Him  and 
carrjdng  the  Cross.  In  explaining  this  first  night  of  the 
senses,  John  gives  way  to  the  crudest  Acosmism.  God 
resembles  no  created  thing,  therefore  we  must  empty  our 
minds  of  all  created  things,  if  we  would  walk  in  the  Divine 
Light.  This  is  the  negative  road  pursued  to  the  utmost. 
The  second  night,  that  is,  of  Faith,  is  the  darkest  of  the 
three.  Faith  is  compared  to  midnight.  It  is  like  the  sun, 
which  "  blinds  the  eyes  and  robs  them  of  the  vision  which 
it  gives,  because  its  own  light  is  out  of  proportion  with,  and 
stronger  than,  our  power  of  sight  ".^  We  have  to  believe 
what  we  are  told,  as  a  blind  man  receives  news  of  colour. 
Reason  and  memory  are  annihilated  by  this  second  Night, 
and  even  the  search  for  sweetness  in  communion  with  God 
is  forbidden  as  "  spiritual  gluttony  ".  We  must  seek  for 
bitterness  in  Him,  give  ourselves  up  to  suffer.  We  cannot 
deny  to  all  this  an  extraordinary  spiritual  heroism  or 
stoicism.  St.  John  at  least  never  falters,  but  pushes  his 
ideas  to  their  extreme  logical  limit,  such  as  no  saint  before 
or  after  him  has  ever  attempted.  The  third  and  last 
Night  is  that  of  the  Will,  in  which  "  the  soul  sinks  into  a 
holy  inertia  and  oblivion,  in  which  the  flight  of  time  is 
unfelt,  and  the  mind  is  unconscious  of  all  particular 
thoughts  ".2  Were  this  third  Night  St.  John's  goal,  there 
would  be  nothing  for  it  but  to  condemn  it,  as  a  form  of 
Eastern  Nihilism.  But  it  is  only  the  final  stage  on  the 
road  to  the  union  with  that  "  sweetest  love  of  God,  too 
little  known  ",  "  the  going  forth  in  perfect  liberty  to  the 
fruition  of  the  union  with  the  Beloved  ".^  All  through 
this  third  night  gleams  from  the  Dayspring  near  at  hand 
visit  the  soul. 

St.  John's  heroism  of  heart  and  singleness  of  purpose 

^  The  Ascent  of  Mount  Cannel,  transl.  by  David  Lewis,  pp.  66,67. 

2  Inge  :    op.  cit.,  p.  227. 

3  Ascent  of  Mount  Carmel,  p.  62. 

/ 


ST.   FRANCIS  DE   SALES  171 

have  called  out  praise  from  many  little  in  sympathy  with 
his  method,  but  much  in  sympathy  with  its  aim,  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Pearl  of  great  price,  Christ.  For  His  sake  St. 
John  thought  no  experience,  inner  or  outer,  too  hard.  Be 
it  remembered,  too,  for  it  is  important,  that  St.  John's 
following  of  the  negative  road  of  Dionysius  and  the  Neo- 
Platonists  was  undertaken  in  an  entirely  different  spirit 
from  theirs.  The  Neo-Platonists  wanted  a  reconciliation 
of  philosophy  and  religion  ;  they  sought  to  define  by  end- 
less abstractions  the  Being  of  God  ;  their  intellect  was 
ever  to  the  forefront.  No  such  reconciliation  ever  entered 
St.  John's  head,  his  experiment  was  purely  psychological : 
he  wanted  Christ,  and  his  literal  interpretation  of  certain 
Gospel  sayings  was  his  way— the  particular  way  suggested 
to  him  individually — of  reaching  "  the  Beloved  ".  He 
"  left  all  ",  and  followed  Him.  Who  shall  say  that  John 
of  the  Cross  was  wrong  ?  We  may  grant  that  terrible 
bodily  sufferings  may  have  had  their  effect  on  his  thoughts  ; 
and  we  must  always  remind  ourselves  that  no  individual 
mystical  experience  has  an  exact  and  perfect  validity  for 
any  one  else.  This  said,  it  is  possible  to  learn  lessons  of 
self-sacrifice  and  Christian  resolution  tempered  like  steel 
from  this  strange  Spanish  saint. 

As  an  interlude,  we  may  glance  North  of  the  Pyrenees 
to  the  gracious  and  winning  figure  of  St.  Francis  de  Sales 
(1567-1622).  Vaughan  says  in  his  peculiar  way  that  "  de 
Sales  was  to  John,  as  a  mystic,  what  Henry  IV  was  to  Philip 
as  a  Catholic  king  ".  There  is  this  much  of  truth  about 
such  a  remark  that,  while  we  find  Quietism  in  St.  Francis' 
works,  it  is  mixed  with  maxims  of  a  more  practical  tendency, 
and  that  the  harsh  and  dark  lines  of  Spanish  Mysticism  are 
softened  and  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  well-to-do  and 
rather  fashionable  pietism  to  which  he  ministered.  Take  the 
instance  of  Contemplation.  There  is  no  Dark  Night,  there 
are  no  rigours  of  actual  Rapture  such  as  St.  Teresa  described  ; 


172  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH   MYSTICS 

there  is  what  Francis  names  "  indistinct  contemplation  " 
instead.  "  Oh !  que  bien-heureux  sont  ceux  qui  .  .  . 
reduisans  tous  leurs  regards  en  une  seule  veue  et  toutes 
leurs  pensees  en  une  seule  conclusion,  arrestant  leur  esprit 
en  I'unite  de  la  contemplation  .  .  .  pronongant  secrette- 
ment  en  leur  ame,  par  une  admiration  permanente,  ces 
paroles  amoureuses  :  Oh  !  bonte  !  bonte  !  bonte  !  tous  jours 
ancienne  et  tous  jours  nouvelle  !  "  ^ 

Far  more  in  the  direct  succession  to  St.  John  was  Miguel 
de  Molinos  (1640-97),  a  devout  Spanish  priest, 2  He  arrived 
in  Rome  about  1670,  and  became  a  great  favourite  with 
Pope  Innocent  XI,  who  lodged  him  in  the  Vatican.  In  1675, 
he  published  his  famous  "  Spiritual  Guide  ",  in  which  the 
practice  of  devotion  is  divided  into  two  parts — Meditation, 
for  beginners,  and  the  interior  way  of  Contemplation,  result- 
ing in  complete  union  with  God.  Self-will  must  be  anni- 
hilated, and  an  undisturbed  passivity  of  soul  encouraged, 
tOl, "  sinking  and  losing  ourselves  in  the  immeasurable  sea 
of  God's  goodness  ",  grace  is  supernaturally  infused  into  this 
passivity  of  being.  He  speaks  much  of  the  prayer  of  silence, 
of  which  there  are  three  kinds,  the  silence  from  words,  the 
silence  from  desires,  and  the  silence  from  thought.  It  is 
impossible  not  to  see  that  there  is  danger  in  all  this,  despite 
much  beautiful  and  permanently  valuable  teaching.  The 
danger  may  be  illustrated  by  two  of  the  condemned  proposi- 
tions :  "  Oportet  hominem  suas  potentias  annihUare  ",'  and, 
"  veUe  operari  active  est  Deum  offendere  ".  *  Suspicion 
rests  however  upon  the  authenticity  of  some  of  the  con- 

^  Traits  de  l' Amour  de  Dieii,  liv.  vi.  chap.  v. 

'  Molinos  is  particularly  well  known  to  English  readers  through 
the  medium  of  "  John  Inglesant ",  where  IMr.  Shorthouse  gives  a 
vivid  and  accurate  account  of  his  arrest  and  condemnation,  ante- 
dating these,  however,  for  the  purpose  of  the  story,  by  about  thirty 
years. 

*  "  It  is  necessary  that  man  annihilate  his  own  capacities  ". 

*  "  To  will  to  be  actively  at  work  is  an  offence  to  God  ". 


MOLINOS   AND   MADAME   GUYON  175 

demned  articles,  since  Molinos  was  accused  of  encouraging 
shameful  vices,  which,  in  a  man  of  his  high  character,  was 
impossible.  But  the  Jesuits  and  their  pupil,  Louis  XIV, 
were  thoroughly  aroused  by  teaching  which  minimized  the 
importance  of  the  ministrations  and  offices  of  the  Church ; 
in  1685  Molinos  was  condemned  and  imprisoned  for  life  ;  in 
1687,  two  hundred  of  his  followers  were  arrested,  and  the 
persecution  of  Quietist  opinions  spread  to  France. 

It  was  to  Madame  Guyon,  a  French  lady  of  position  who 
was  suffering  from  the  mortifications  of  ill-health  and  an 
unhappy  married  life,  and  was  endeavouring  in  vain  to  find 
religious  consolation,  that  an  old  Franciscan  friar  uttered 
the  memorable  words,  "  Madame,  you  are  disappointed  and 
perplexed  because  you  seek  without  what  you  have  within. 
Accustom  yourself  to  seek  God  in  your  heart,  and  you  will 
find  Him  ".     All  through  her  life  she  was  to  prove  the  truth 
of  this  counsel.     Her  beauty  was  shattered  by  the  small-pox  ; 
her  work  at  Gex  amongst  the  young,  the  poor,  and  the  sick 
was  destroyed  by  suspicions  of  her  orthodoxy ;   her  books, 
"  The  Torrents"  and  the  "Short  Method  of  Prayer",  were 
burned  in  the  market-place  at  Thonon.     There  followed  a 
brief  summer-time  of  repose  and  Court  favour  at  Paris  ; 
a  select  group  of  Quietists  gathered  round  her,  and  Madame 
de  Maintenon  showed  her  favour  and  introduced  her  to  her 
splendid  institution  at  St.  Cyr,  where  she  made  the  acquaint- 
ance and  friendship  of  Archbishop  Fenelon.     Then  came  the 
storm  of  condemnation  of  Quietist  opinions,  which,  starting 
with   the    condemnation    of    Molinos,    spread    to    France. 
Bossuet  was  charged  to  examine  Madame  Guyon,  an  examin- 
ation which  he  conducted  with  singular  severity  and  fanati- 
cism while  she  lay  ill  at  Meaux.     He  obtained,  of  course,  her 
submission,  and  gave  her  a  certificate  of  orthodoxy,  but 
when  she  retired  from  Meaux  to  Paris  he  chose  to  interpret 
her  journey  as  a  suspicious  flight,  and  secured  her   arrest 
and  incarceration  for  four  years  in  the  Bastille.    After  her 


174  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH  MYSTICS 

liberation  in  1702  she  went  to  spend  the  remainder  of  her 
days  at  Blois. 

Meanwhile,  Bossuet  had  attacked  not  only  the  doctrines, 
but  the  character  of  Madame  Guyon  in  ten  books,  entitled 
"  Instructions  on  the  State  of  Prayer  ",  to  which  he  required 
the  Archbishop  of  Cambrai's  express  printed  approval. 
This  Fenelon  could  not  give,  since  he  regarded  the  book  as 
a  mere  travesty  of  Madame  Guyon's  opinions.  In  self- 
defence,  he  published  a  mystical  book  of  his  own,  which  he 
called  "  Maxims  of  the  Saints  ",  and  which  gave  rise  to  furious 
and  lengthy  controversy.  At  the  instance  of  Louis  XIV, 
the  Pope,  Innocent  XII,  at  length  reluctantly  gave  consent 
to  the  censure  of  twenty-three  propositions  extracted  from 
the  book,  though  the  censure  did  not  extend  to  the  explana- 
tions which  Fenelon  rendered  of  the  book.  It  is  now  time 
to  see  what  particular  phase  of  Quietism  it  was  which  excited 
the  French  controversy.  It  centred  in  what  was  known  as 
the  doctrine  of  Disinterested  Love,  and  this  doctrine  was 
common  to  the  writings  alike  of  Madame  Guyon  and  of 
Fenelon. 

Madame  Guyon's  mysticism,  which  resembled  that  of 
St.  Teresa  in  its  experience  of  the  Ecstasy,  but  was  much 
more  emotional  and  devoid  of  self-control,  maybe  represented 
by  three  verses  from  her  poem,  "  The  Acquiescence  of  Pure 
Love  ",  translated  by  Cowper,  and  often  enough  quoted  : — 

Love,  if  Thy  destined  sacrifice  am  I, 

Come,  slay  Thy  victim,  and  prepare  Thy  fires  ; 

Plunged  in  Thy  depths  of  mercy  let  me  die. 
The  death  which  every  soul  that  loves  desires  !  .  .  . 

To  me  'tis  equal,  whether  Love  ordain 

My  life  or  death,  appoint  me  pain  or  ease. 

My  soul  perceives  no  real  ill  in  pain  ; 

In  ease  or  health  no  real  good  she  sees.  .  .  . 

That  we  should  bear  the  cross  is  Thy  command, 
Die  to  the  world,  and  live  to  self  no  more  ; 


ANTOINETTE   BOURIGNAN  175 

Suffer  unmoved  beneath  the  rudest  hand, 

As  pleased  when  shipwrecked  as  when  safe  on  shore. 

This  absolute  renunciation  of  the  ordinary  ties  and  prefer- 
ences of  the  self  for  the  sake  of  the  Highest  Love  was  with 
Madame  Guyon,  as  with  others  of  the  period,  part  of  an  over- 
mastering and  deeply  interesting  impulse  which  swept  over 
Europe  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  An- 
toinette Bourignan  (1616-1680)  in  Flanders  was  an  even 
more  thorough-going,  certainly  more  violent  and  less  love- 
able,  empiricist  of  Madame  Guyon's  kind.  The  possession 
of  a  single  penny,  she  found,  kept  her  from  full  communion 
with  her  God,  and  she  therefore  renounced  everything.  Yet 
the  fact  remains  that,  as  with  John  of  the  Cross,  so  with 
Madame  Guyon,  and  the  rather  unamiable  Madame  Bouri- 
gnan, this  absolute  self-abandonment  proved,  as  the  Gospel 
always  declared  it  would  prove,  an  unquestionable  and 
mighty  power.  We  have  seen  the  work  accomplished,  in 
the  face  of  all  opposition,  by  the  Spanish  mystics  ;  crowds 
gathered  around  Molinos  ;  Madame  Bourignan,  with  her 
forgetfulness  of  all  things,  and  her  inner  communion  with 
Another,  ^  founded  a  sect  with  large  ramifications  ;  Madame 
Guyon  was  the  centre  of  a  wide  and  devoted  circle  of  learners 
in  Paris.  We  shall  see  later  the  influence  of  this  doctrine 
in  England. 

With  regard  to  Fenelon,  he  was  drawn  into  the  controversy 
by  the  high-handed  action  of  Bossuet,  who  marred  a  great 
career  and  character  by  his  Court  complacency  on  this 
occasion,  rather  than  involved  in  it  as  an  experimental 
mystic.  Bossuet  knew  little  or  nothing  about  the  mysticism 
which   he   was   attacking,    although   mystical   expressions 

^  See  A.  R.  McEwen  :  Antoinette  Bourignan,  Quietist.  "  When 
I  am  recollected  in  my  sohtude  in  a  forgetfulness  of  all  things,  then 
my  spirit  communicates  with  Another  Spirit  and  they  entertain 
one  another  as  two  friends  who  converse  about  serious  matters  ". 
p.  109, 


176  SPANISH  AND  FRENCH  MYSTICS 

appear  in  his  works,  as  they  would  in  the  works  of  any 
CathoHc  theologian  ;  and  Fenelon  came  forward,  a  champion 
of  the  oppressed,  to  explain  theologically  the  teaching  of 
Disinterested  Love,  and  also  of  the  Prayer  of  Pure  Contem- 
plation. There  are,  he  says,  five  kinds  of  love  to  God  :  (i) 
Servile  love,  which  looks  for  reward :  (2)  a  higher  kind  of 
servility,  which  seeks  the  comfort  of  God's  love  in  return 
for  its  own :  (3)  the  love  of  hope,  which  looks  for  eternal 
welfare :  (4)  Interested  love,  in  which  selfish  motives  are 
still  present,  and  (5)  Disinterested  love,  which  loves  God  for 
Himself  only,  careless  of  what  soul  or  body  may  suffer,  here 
or  even  hereafter.  Now  even  Chrysostom  and  Clement  are 
found  suggesting  that  if  souls  in  this  last  state  were  to 
iind  themselves  in  heU  by  God's  Will,  they  would  not  love 
Him  less.  The  flaw  here  would  seem  to  lie  in  the  coarse 
conception  of  heV  as  a  definite  "  locus  "  rather  than  as  a 
privation  of  God  ;  and  love  to  God  cannot  exist  without 
God  as  its  real  Energy.  Fenelon  was  emphatic  on  our  need 
to  the  last  of  co-operation  with  God  :  we  must  not  be  merely 
as  strings  of  the  plectrum  on  which  the  breath  of  the  Spirit 
sweeps  or  as  wax  for  His  impress,  notwithstanding  the 
Tiysterious  ache  of  the  soul — surely  a  psychological  fact — 
for  this  state  of  passivity.  We  should  not  "  hate  ourselves ; 
we  should  be  in  charity  with  ourselves  as  with  others  ". 
"  Vocal  prayer,  for  Christ  practised  it,  cannot  be  useless  to 
contemplatives  "  ;  and  again,  in  a  beautiful  sentence,  "  we 
pray  as  much  as  we  desire ;  and  we  desire  as  much  as  we  love  ", 
We  can  never  get  beyond  Christ ;  we  can  never  possess  God 
in  His  absolute  simplicity.  Still,  Fenelon  declared  that  the 
state  of  "  pure  love  ",  although  rare,  although  intermittent, 
has  been  possible  to  the  saints ;  and  though  he  asserts,  in  his 
"  Explanations  of  the  '  JMaxims  of  the  Saints  '  ",  sent  to  the 
Pope,  that  Hope  must  always  abide,  his  assertion  scarcely 
defends  him  from  keeping  the  name  of  that  virtue,  but  doing 
away,  at  least  potentially,  with  its  reality.     In  any  case,  his 


DOCTRINE  OF  DISINTERESTED  LOVE      177 

very  guarded  Explanations  did  not  save  him  from  the  accusa- 
tion of  "  indifference  to  salvation  ",  the  "  abolishment  of 
the  love  of  gratitude  ",  and  a  tendency  to  look  on  the  con- 
templation of  Christ's  Humanity  as  a  fall  from  the  heights  of 
pure  contemplation.  The  truth  was  that  on  Fenelon's 
head,  and  in  Fenelon's  day,  fell  much  of  the  condemnation 
which  the  extreme  teaching  of  many  mystics,  hitherto  recog- 
nized or  at  least  not  denied  by  the  Church,  had  been  long 
heaping  up  for  itself.  "  The  action  between  God  and  man 
must  be  reciprocal ",  as  Dr.  Inge  has  said ;  pure  love  would  lead 
to  the  destruction  of  love,  for  love  requires  two  living  factors 
and  "  the  person  who  has  attained  a  '  holy  indifference  ', 
who  has  passed  wholly  out  of  self,  is  as  incapable  of  love  as 
of  any  other  emotion".^  It  is  the  attempt  "  to  wind  our- 
selves too  high  for  mortal  man".  It  was  more  than  unfor- 
tunate, too,  that  the  whole  controversy  in  France  and  in  the 
Papal  Court  should  have  become  tinged  and  warped,  and 
its  issue  prejudged,  by  motives  of  high  ecclesiastical  policy, 
the  Jesuits  alarming  themselves  for  the  authority  of  the 
Church  and  recognizing  in  Mysticism  a  power  making  for 
independence  and  freedom,  and  the  French  King,  under 
their  influence,  bringing  the  whole  tyrannous  force  of  a 
bigoted  old  age  to  bear  on  the  Pope  in  order  to  secure  the 
condemnation,  at  every  cost,  of  Quietism  and  the  Quietists. 

^  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  p.  241. 


M.C.  N 


CHAPTER    X 

Post-Reformation  Mysticism  in  England 

BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

HITHERTO,  the  path  which  Mysticism  traced  out  for 
itself  has  been  pursued  of  set  purpose  within  the 
limits  of  the  Roman  Catholic  obedience.  ^  It  is  necessary 
now  to  retrace  our  steps  considerably,  and  to  take  up  the 
thread  of  the  story  once  more  at  the  period  in  England  imme- 
diately succeeding  the  Reformation.  The  reason  for  this 
division  of  the  subject  will  be  at  once  apparent.  England 
produced  during  the  seventeenth  century  a  remarkable 
succession  of  mystical  ^Titers,  men  of  fine,  if  sometimes 
waysvard  genius,  at  least  half  of  them  poets,  who  thus 
inaugurated  that  close  connexion  between  English  poetry  and 
English  Mysticism  which  became  a  fact  almost  without 
exception  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  school  of  English 
]\Iysticism  in  the  seventeenth  century  suffered  division 
again  within  itself,  owdng  to  the  fact  that  the  full  results  of 
the  Reformation  had  still  to  work  themselves  out,  and 
would  finally  leave  the  national  religious  thought  parted 
in  two  camps,  Churchmanship  and  Puritanism,  each  with  its 
own  peculiar  gifts  of  apprehension  and  expression  of  the 
Divine,  Between  the  two  camps,  and  in  spirit  owning  full 
allegiance  to  neither,  stand  the  Cambridge  Platonists,  whose 

^  Madame  Bourignan  was  excepted,  on  account  of  her  adhesion 
to  the  doctrine  of  Disinterested  Love. 

178 


SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY  ENGLAND        179 

gospel  of  light  and  quietness  of  spirit  comes  as  a  keen  refresh- 
ment amid  the  incessant  jangles  of  a  distracted  time.  In 
one  respect,  however,  all  schools  of  Post-Reformation  Eng- 
lish Mysticism  are  alike  distinguished  from  mystics  before 
the  Reformation  and  of  the  Roman  Church  afterwards. 
The  scheme  of  the  mystics'  progress,  worked  out  so  often 
and  with  ever-increasing  philosophical  and  psychological 
subtlety,  disappears.  The  simple,  broad  outlines  of  Purga- 
tion, Illumination,  and  Contemplation  may  be  at  the  back  of 
some  mystical  minds,  and  the  terms  are,  more  or  less  loosely, 
used  ;  but  the  Scala  Perfection-is  is  never  insisted  on  as  an 
indispensable  framework  of  the  spiritual  life.  Instead, 
we  get  feeling,  experience,  ever  fresh,  and  noted  down  with 
all  conceivable  delicacy  and  power.  The  mystical  touch, 
that  curious  ineffable  Somewhat  which  differentiates  the 
mystic  from  the  simply  spiritual  man,  is  none  the  less  there  ; 
it  appears  in  paradox,  or  in  a  singular  felicity  of  epigrammatic 
expression,  in  which  heart  and  brain  are  equally  at  work, 
or  again,  it  comes  out  in  some  phrase  to  which  only  the 
initiated  can  really  respond.     "  Cor  ad  cor  loquitur  ". 

But  English  Mysticism  of  the  seventeenth  century  owed 
so  much  of  its  peculiar  expression  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  times  that  it  is  needful  to  make  a  short  digression  in 
order  to  understand  of  what  sort  was  that  English  world 
to  whose  oversight,  in  1603,  the  ill-fated  Stuart  dynasty 
came. 

"  The  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth  "  were  over  ; 
the  "  bright  occidental  star  "  had  set ;  the  day  had  dawned 
of  "  new  faces,  other  minds  ".  The  difference  indeed  be- 
tween the  atmosphere  of  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I 
was  so  emphatic  that  it  set  it  mark  even  outwardly  on  the 
attire  and  fashions  of  men ;  so  quickly  the  stiff  ruff  became 
the  falling  collar ;  the  close-brushed  hair,  the  loose  locks  J 
the  high  small  hat,  the  graceful  sombrero.  It  was  a  world 
which  intended,  for  some  time  at  least,  and  it  hoped  for  a 


i8o  BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

long  time,  to  take  its  ease,  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry 
on  the  much  treasure  heaped  up.  For,  in  truth,  it  was  a 
rich  world,  in  things  material  and  intellectual. 

(i)  The  great  material  prosperity  of  the  times  arose  from 
several  causes.  Chief  of  these,  of  course,  was  the  opening 
up  of  a  New  World  east  and  west  by  the  great  explorers  of 
the'sixteenth  century.  In  the  wake  of  the  explorers  went  the 
soldiers  and  the  traders.  New  trade-markets  and  new  trade- 
routes  were  being  discovered  and  utilized  in  all  directions. 
Virginia  in  America,  Archangel  in  Russia,  and  the  coasts  of 
far-off  Hindustan  are  three  names  that  suggest  a  little  of 
the  vast  change  in  progress.  The  East  India  Company  was 
founded  in  1600.  Of  course  there  were  rivals  in  the  field. 
The  Dutch  succeeded  in  clearing  their  English  rivals  out  of  the 
Spice  Islands  in  1623 — the  beginning  of  a  century-long  race 
between  the  two  peoples  for  Colonial  Empire.  With  the 
other  great  colonial  world-power  England's  struggle  was  far 
more  profitable  than  any  peace  could  have  been.  For 
Spain — "  martyr  to  her  Catholicity  " — was  declining  fast, 
and  all  through  the  later  years  of  Elizabeth  English  seamen 
snatched  her  treasure-ships,  appropriated  bits  of  her  New 
World  possessions  here  and  there,  and  generally  diverted  a 
large  part  of  her  yearly  colonial  revenue  into  the  London 
Exchequer.  It  was  a  buccaneering  process,  but  extraordin- 
arily prosperous.  Another  cause  of  wealth  was  the  long 
internal  peace  of  England,  which  meant  growth  and  free 
exchange  in  internal  trade;  coal  was  got  from  the  Tyne- 
pits,  and  iron  from  Sussex  and  Kent,  there  were  the  hard- 
ware manufacturers  in  Warwick,  Stafford,  and  Worcester, 
and  the  weaving  industry  of  East  Anglia,  where  had  settled 
the  Flemish  and  Dutch  weavers  who  had  fled  from  the 
persecutions  of  Alva's  troopers.  And  lastly,  a  great  deal  of 
the  ancient  wealth  of  the  Church,  its  abbeys,  its  monasteries 
and  their  lands,  had  passed  permanently  into  private  hands 
which  would  keep  what  they  had  got. 


PROSPERITY  AND  INTELLECTUALISM      i8i 

All  this  material  well-being  was  reflected  in  the  outward 
appearance  of  things.  Men  built  great  houses  in  town  and 
country,  and  expended  much  taste  in  their  architecture. 
Very  noticeable  in  the  late  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  manor- 
houses  is  the  absence  of  all  defensive  building.  Peace,  men 
thought,  had  come  to  stay.  Vast  gardens  in  the  Italian 
style  were  laid  out  round  the  houses,  which  were  destined  as, 
and  often  became,  little  courts  for  the  cultivation  of  an 
artistic  and  comely  life.  Such  were  Lady  Bedford's  house 
at  Twickenham,  Lord  Falkland's  house  at  Great  Tew,  Lord 
Worcester's  at  Raglan,  and  Lord  Winchester's  at  Basing. 
The  lesser  houses  of  the  period,  too,  with  their  well-finished 
stone  mullions  and  picturesque  gables  and  porches,  show 
the  same  general  standard  of  well-being  and  of  good  taste. 
One  curious  evidence  of  prosperity  was  the  commonness  of 
the  use  of  silver  for  dnnking-vessels  and  ornaments  in  the 
England  before  the  Civil  Wars.  In  fact,  for  a  widespread 
prosperity,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  comparison  with  the 
era  of  the  first  James.  Even  the  days  of  Charles  I's  personal 
government  (1630-41)  were  exceedingly  prosperous.  The 
Puritans  really  rebelled  on  principle  only. 

(2)  With  the  material  prosperity  went  a  vast  intellectual 
expansion  and  vv  ell-being.  The  Renaissance,  a  century 
before,  had  unroUed  before  men's  minds  the  forgotten  wealth 
of  the  classics  :  the  discoveries  of  Copernicus,  revolution- 
izing all  former  astronomical  ideas,  the  voyages  of  Colum- 
bus, Cabot,  Amerigo,  and  other  daring  explorers  upsetting 
all  former  geographical  notions,  had  literally  brought  around 
men  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  The  progress  of  science 
began,  or  rather  started  afresh,  after  centuries  of  uneasy 
slumber  ;  we  can  hardly  conceive  the  whirl  of  excitement,  of 
novelty,  of  adventure  in  which  the  minds  of  the  thinkers  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  habitually  moved. 
To-day,  though  scarcely  yet  wholly  familiarized  with  the 
facts  of  what  was  then  the  New  Astronomy,  we  know  them 


i82  BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

for  facts.  Then  they  had  only  just  broken  on  the  wondering 
intelhgence  of  men.  Every  way  the  earth's  horizon  had 
rolled  back,  and  the  skies  had,  as  it  were,  given  way  and 
let  the  startled  gaze  go  through  to  the  infinite  space  in 
which  the  insignificant  ball  of  the  earth  was  poised  and 
rolled.  At  the  same  time  ancient  philosophies — the  vast 
thought-systems  of  a  world  without  Christianity — were 
coming  to  their  own  again. 

(3)  From  all  this  there  could  be  but  one  result,  a  freedom 
of  thought  hitherto  unknown.  All  the  old  ties  and  sanctions 
were  suddenly  loosed  and  dissolved.  The  Church's  teaching 
about  earth  and  sun  had  been  proved  mistaken ;  the 
Church's  half-suspicions  of  Nature  and  her  beauty  and  order 
gave  way  to  a  boundless  scientific  curiosity  and  a  daring 
imaginative  appreciation.  At  the  same  time  the  great 
political  movement  of  the  Reformation  shattered  the  outward 
unity  and  authority  of  the  Church.  The  medieval  ideal,  the 
medieval  conception  of  the  Papacy  as  arbiter  of  the  world, 
the  medieval  conception  of  the  almost  absolute  dominance  of 
the  spiritual  over  the  temporal,  broke  up  into  confusion, 
never  completely  to  reassert  themselves  again. 

(4)  Three  forces  were  at  work,  however,  to  keep  the  best 
minds  of  the  seventeenth  century — at  any  rate  in  England — 
true  to  Divine  things,  anxious  for  Divine  guidance. 

(a)  A  feeling  of  Disillusionment  that  was  very  widely 
spread.  The  first  excitement  aud  glory  of  the  Renaissance 
had  passed  away,  and  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth 
had  not  brought  all  that  they  had  promised  to  bring.  The 
wisdom  and  the  splendour,  the  luxuries  and  the  prosperity 
of  the  New  Age  had  produced  an  aftermath  of  grossness,  of 
greed  and  of  cruelty,  that  drove  many  to  recoil  from  a  world 
so  outwardly  glorious  and  yet  so  terribly  vile.  So  we  shall 
find  once  more  the  turning  within  for  the  true  and  lasting 
wealth,  a  retirement  from  Courts  and  affairs,  from  power 
and  place,  to  quiet  communings  apart  with  Nature  and  the 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   BIBLE  183 

world  of   Faith,  as  with  Herbert,  the  Ferrars,  Henry  More 
and  WiUiam  Penn. 

(b)  A  curious  pre-occupation  with  Death.  This  appears 
up  and  down  nearly  all  the  writings  of  the  poets  and  mystics, 
and  is  legibly  inscribed  on  the  tombs  and  momunents  of  the 
period.  We  have  the  skulls  and  crossbones,  the  full-length 
skeletons,  the  inverted  torches  and  broken  columns,  all  the 
grim  outward  imagery  of  dissolution,  carried  sometimes  to 
an  excess  such  as  that  of  Dean  Donne's  weird  monument  in 
St.  Paul's.  The  truth  was  that  the  exact  and  detailed 
certainties  of  the  medieval  Church  with  regard  to  the  here- 
after had  suffered  the  blight  of  distrust  and  scepticism  which 
had  befallen  its  other  authoritative  doctrines.  Men  no 
longer  had  the  life  beyond  the  tomb  pictured  before  their 
eyes  in  clear  and  immortal  colours,  and  as  that -light  failed, 
the  tomb  itself,  and  all  its  accessories,  rose  up  before  them 
dark  and  enigmatic  as  ever.  It  is  the  clear  approach  to 
God,  the  laying  hold  of  Him  in  some  new  and  direct  fashion, 
that  alone  will  conquer  this  fear. 

(c)  Lastly,  the  very  increase  of  learning  that  brought  the 
pagan  classics  brought  also  the  re-opening  in  their  fullness 
and  their  original  meaning,  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  the 
great  spiritual  movement  of  the  Reformation.  The  place 
that  the  English  Bible  held  in  the  hearts  of  the  seventeenth- 
century  mystics  cannot  be  exaggerated.  It  coloured  their 
thoughts  and  moulded  their  speech,  and  that  increasingly 
as  the  century  went  on. 

If  we  were  to  search  for  a  man  and  a  mystic  symptomatic 
of  his  age  in  exactly  the  qualities  of  mind  just  enumerated, 
we  should  find  such  a  one  in  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  the  physi- 
cian of  Norwich.  Not  the  deepest  or  most  eloquent  or  most 
spiritual  of  seventeenth-century  writers, — although  many 
of  his  thoughts  were  profound  and  spiritual  and  all  were 
eloquently  expressed — we  have  in  him  a  learned  man,  full 
of  a  great  curiosity  and  wondering  dehght  in  life,  and  quite 


i84  BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

as  great  a  curiosity  about  death,  restless  in  speculation,  yet  of 
a  steady  devoutness,  tinged  with  the  Ught  and  fire  of  mystical 
apprehension. 

His  life,  as  we  glance  at  it,  looks  uneventful  enough,  but 
to  Browne  at  thirty  years  old  "  it  is  a  Miracle,  which  to  relate 
were  not  a  History,  but  a  piece  of  Poetry,  and  would  sound 
like  a  Fable  ".  The  miracle  to  us  is  its  quietude  and  sweet- 
ness through  such  troublous  days,  for  Browne  was  repre- 
sentative of  his  time  in  this  too  that  he  hved  over  nearly 
the  whole  of  the  century,  being  born  in  1605,  the  year  of 
Gunpowder  Plot,  and  dying  in  1682  within  three  years  of 
James  H's  critical  reign.  His  father  was  a  man  of  wealth, 
who  died  in  his  boyhood.  He  had  also  a  beautiful  and  holy 
mind,  if  we  may  judge  from  a  lovely  httle  story  told  of 
Thomas  Browne's  infancy.  "  His  father  used  to  uncover  his 
breast  when  he  was  asleep,  and  kiss  it  in  prayers  over  him, 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  would  take  possession  there ".  The 
youth  that  followed  this  carefully  tended  boyhood  was  that 
of  the  well-to-do  young  man  of  the  age.  He  went  to  Oxford 
in  1626  and  then  travelled,  making  the  Grand  Tour  in  France 
and  Italy.  He  meant  to  be  a  physician,  and  so  attended 
classes  at  the  Medical  Schools  of  Padua  and  MontpeUier. 
Leyden  gave  him  his  M.D.  in  1633,  Oxford  the  same  degree 
four  years  later.  In  1637,  he  settled  at  Norwich,  where  he 
remained  for  the  rest  of  his  long  hfe,  "  much  resorted  to  for 
his  skill  in  physic  ". 

He  was  known  throughout  his  life  as  a  good  Church  of 
England  man,  "  attended  the  public  service  very  constantly, 
never  missed  the  Sacrament  in  his  parish  ;  read  the  best 
EngUsh  sermons  he  could  hear  of,  with  hberal  applause ; 
dehghted  not  in  controversies  ".  During  the  Civil  Wars 
he  was  studying  flowers  and  stars,  and  while  others  were 
throwing  up  ramparts  and  field  works,  he  was  digging  up 
and  improving  the  Norwich  drains.  He  heartily  rejoiced  at 
the  Restoration,  and  was  glad  to  see  the  AngUcan  service 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  185 

coming  to  its  own  again  in  the  Norwich  Churches,  On 
Coronation  Day,  he  walked  up  and  down  the  streets,  exchang- 
ing congratulations  "  civil  and  debonair  ".  Thenceforth  his 
life,  peaceful  and  beloved,  pursued  a  yet  happier,  calmer 
course.  He  brought  up  a  large  family,  and  his  two 
boys,  Edward  and  "  honest  Tom,"  did  him  credit.  One 
event  only  broke  the  even  tenour  of  their  father's  life.  In 
1671,  Charles  II  visited  Norwich  and  wished  to  knight  the 
Mayor.  The  Mayor,  with  rare  and  charming  generosity  of 
soul,  besought  the  King  to  bestow  the  honour  instead  on  the 
famous  doctor  of  Norwich,  and  this  was  done. 

Now  ^why  should  Sir  Thomas  Browne  regard  this  even, 
tranquil,  ordinary  life  as  a  thing  of  wonder,  or  miracle  ? 
"  Of  these  wonders  ",  says  Samuel  Johnson,  who  wrote  his 
biography,  ".  .  .  his  life  offers  no  appearance  ".  But,  as 
Browne  himself  observes,  "  we  carry  with  us  the  wonders 
that  we  seek  without  us  ",  and  if  we  turn  to  his  books,  we 
find  at  once  that  the  inner  soul  of  this  prosperous,  kindly 
citizen  of  the  world  was  a  storehouse  of  beautiful  imaginings 
and  strange  experience. 

During  his  life  he  wrote  five  books,  the  famous  "  Religio 
Medici  "  first,  when  he  was  a  young  man  of  about  thirty.  This 
saw  the  light  anonymously  in  1642  and  in  a  corrupt  form,  the 
MS.  having  been  handed  a  good  deal  about,  until  it  came 
under  the  eyes  of  that  singular  and  rather  kindred  spirit. 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby.  Digby  was  a  Roman  CathoUc,  and  saw 
fit  to  make  some  "  Animadversions  "  on  the  book,  which 
really  attracted  him  immensely,  and  so  Browne  brought  out  a 
correct  edition  under  his  own  name.  At  other  intervals  in 
his  hfe  there  came  "  The  Garden  of  Cyrus  ",  a  fanciful  attempt 
to  trace  a  mysterious  persistence  of  the  number  five  through 
creation  (the  least  effective  of  his  writings)  ;  "  The  Discourse 
of  Vulgar  Errors  ",  a  good  example  of  the  workings  of  the 
enquiring,  scientific  mind  at  its  outset,  then  "  Christian 
Morals  ",  a  book  much  admired  by   Johnson,  who  edited 


i86  BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

it,  and  lastly,  the  famous  "  Urn  Burial  ",  a  treatise  on  various 
rites  of  burial,  occasioned  by  his  digging  up  some  old  funeral 
urns  in  his  garden.  This  very  aptly  illustrates  the  trait  in 
seventeenth  century  thought  that  we  noted — its  somewhat 
grim  pre-occupation  with  death. 

Let  us  take  up  the  "  Religio  Medici  "  and  Usten  while 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  discourses  to  us.  It  is  the  creed  of  his 
own  mind  and  spiritual  life — the  creed,  as  he  thinks,  of  the 
scientific  man,  who  can  be  a  terrible  sceptic  at  times.  But 
in  reaUty  Faith  always  has  the  last  Vvord  with  him,  so  much 
so  that  Walter  Pater  denies  that  Browne  ever  doubted  at  all, 
and  says  that,  as  a  consequence,  the  "  Religio  "  is  far  more 
bracing  to  Piety  than  to  Faith.  ^  He  is  a  Christian,  but 
because  that  name  is  somewhat  general,  "  to  be  particular,  I 
am  of  that  Reformed  new-cast  rehgion,  wherein  I  dislike 
nothing  but  the  name ".  But  he  is  broad-minded,  and, 
like  many  of  his  thoughtful  contemporaries,  whose  grand- 
fathers could  remember  the  roods  in  their  churches,  and 
the  chanting  of  the  Mass  in  the  Oxford  chapels,  he  has  a 
rather  tender  feeUng  for  the  older  obedience.  Holy  Water 
and  Crucifix  do  not  "  abuse  (his)  devotion  ",  nay,  at  the  latter 
sight,  "  I  can  dispense  with  my  hat,  but  seldom  with  the 
thought  or  memory  of  my  Saviour  ".  He  will  not  own  the 
nativity  of  his  religion  to  Henry  VHI,  but  he  insists  on  being 
at  least  polite  to  the  Pope,  "  to  whom,  as  a  temporal  Prince, 
we  owe  the  duty  of  good  language  ".  Of  his  baptism,  he 
beautifully  says  ;  "  from  this  do  I  compute  or  calculate  my 
Nativity,  not  reckoning  those  horae  comhustae  and  odd  days, 
or  esteeming  myself  anything,  before  I  was  my  Saviour's 
and  enrolled  in  the  register  of  Christ ".  Now  more  deeply 
of  his  inner  life  :  "  I  love  ",  he  cries,  "  to  lose  myself  in  a 
Mystery,  to  pursue  my  Reason  to  an  O  Altitudo  !  'Tis 
my  soHtary  recreation  to  pose  my  apprehension  with  these 
involved  Mnigmas  and  riddles  of  the  Trinity,  with  Incarna- 
^  W.  Pater :  Appreciations.     Sir  Thomas  Browne. 


THE   "RELIGIO  MEDICI"  187 

tion  and  Resurrection  ...  I  desire  to  exercise  my  faith  in 
the  difficultest  point,  for  to  credit  ordinary  and  visible 
objects  is  not  faith,  but  persuasion  ...  I  would  not  have 
been  of  those  Israelites  who  pass'd  the  Red  Sea,  nor  one  of 
Christ's  patients  on  whom  He  wrought  His  wonders  :  then 
had  my  faith  been  thrust  upon  me,  nor  should  I  enjoy  the 
greater  blessing  promised  to  all  that  believe,  and  saw  not  ". 
Again,  he  practises  self -recollection,- — "in  my  retired  and 
solitary  imagination  I  remember  I  am  not  alone,  and  there- 
fore forget  not  to  contemplate  Him  and  His  attributes  Who 
is  ever  with  me,  especially  those  two  mighty  ones.  His  Wis- 
dom and  Eternity",!  and  in  this  connexion  he  quaintly 
adds,  "  who  can  speak  of  Eternity  without  a  Solecism,  and 
think  thereof  without  an  Exstasie  ?  Time  we  may  compre- 
hend ;  'tis  but  five  days  older  than  ourselves ".  His 
thoughts  on  Prayer  are  beautiful  and  unselfish,  and  extend 
wistfully  beyond  what  was  thought  right  in  his  day.  Just  as 
"  I  cannot  contentedly  frame  a  prayer  for  myself  in  particu- 
lar, without  a  catalogue  for  my  friends  ",  nor  "  go  to  cure  the 
bodie  of  my  patient,  but  I  forget  my  profession  and  call 
unto  God  for  His  soul  ",  so,  "  I  could  scarce  contain  my 
Prayers  for  a  friend  at  the  ringing  of  a  Bell,  or  behold  his 
corps  without  an  orison  for  his  soul.  'Twas  a  good  way, 
methought,  to  be  remembered  by  posterity,  and  far  more 
noble  than  a  History  ".  But  he  puts  this  last  opinion  on  a 
level  with  one  he  once  conceived  as  to  the  soul's  dying  with 
the  body,  and  being  miraculously  raised  together  with  it  at  the 
last  Day  ;  and  to  this  he  exquisitely  adds,  "  So  that  I  might 
enjoy  my  Saviour  at  the  last,  I  could  with  patience  be  nothing 

1  Cf.  his  most  mystical  sentence,  "  If  any  have  been  so  happy 
as  truly  to  understand  Christian  annihilation  .  .  .  the  kiss  of  the 
spouse,  gustation  of  God,  and  ingression  into  the  Divine  shadow, 
they  have  already  had  a  handsome  anticipation  of  heaven  ".  Had 
Browne,  one  wonders,  come  aci-oss  the  writings  of  the  Spanish 
Mystics  ? 


i88  BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

almost  unto  Eternity  ".  This  brings  us  to  his  thoughts  and 
love  of  God.  "  All  that  is  truly  amiable  is  God  ",  he  says, 
and  he  loves  God  with  all  his  might.  "  Dispose  of  me  ",  he 
prays,  "  according  to  the  wisdom  of  Thy  pleasure  ;  Thy  \vill 
be  done,  even  in  mine  own  undoing."  This  is  the  true 
mystic's  prayer.  He  sees  the  mystery  of  God  reflected  in 
the  three-fold  mystery  of  self ;  but,  most  and  clearest,  he 
sees  God  in  the  world  of  Nature.  "  There  are  two  books 
from  which  I  cull  my  Divinitie  ;  besides  that  written  one  of 
God,  another  of  His  servant  Nature,  that  universal  and 
public  Manuscript,  that  lies  expansed  under  the  eyes  of  ail ; 
those  that  never  saw  Him  in  the  one  have  discovered  Him  in 
the  other  ".  He  does  not  "  disdain  to  suck  Divinitie  from 
the  flowers  of  Nature  ",  and  truly,  for  Browne,  the  spirit  of 
the  Lord  broods  over  the  face  of  all  things.  "  This  is  that 
irradiation  that  dispels  the  mists  of  hell,  ,  .  .  and  preserves 
the  region  of  the  mind  in  serenity.  Whosoever  feels  not 
the  warm  gale  and  gentle  irradiation  of  this  Spirit,  (tho'  I 
feel  his  pulse,)  I  dare  not  say  he  lives ;  for  truly,  without 
this,  to  me  there  is  no  heat  under  the  tropic,  nor  any  light, 
tho'  I  dwelt  in  the  body  of  the  sun."  Finally,  in  one  perfect 
phrase,  "  Nature  is  the  Art  of  God  ",  as  elsewhere  he  quotes, 
"  Lux  umbra  Dei  ". 

In  his  thoughts  on  the  "  music  of  the  sphears  "  he  anti- 
cipates Addison  ;  indeed,  "  there  is  a  music  wherever  there 
is  a  harmony,  order,  or  proportion  ".  He  has,  too,  some 
profound  and  characteristic  things  to  say  of  that  inward  har- 
mony which  is  the  love  of  soul  to  soul.  "  Conceive  light 
invisible,  and  that  is  a  spirit  ",  he  cries,  and  then,  "  United 
souls  are  not  satisfied  with  embraces,  but  desire  to  be  truly 
each  other,  which  being  impossible,  their  desires  are  infinite  ". 
The  man  who  thus  ponders  is,  all  the  while,  the  humblest  of 
mortals.  "  Defenda  me,  Dios,  de  me  ",  is  the  first  prayer 
of  "his  retired  imaginations  ",  and  "  to  bring  up  the  Rere 
in  Heaven  "  his  utmost  ambition.     No  doubt  it  was  with 


THOUGHTS  ON  DEATH  189 

senses  thus  cleared  of  wilful  sin  and  vanity  that  he  could  see 
so  well  the  music  and  glory  of  God  in  Nature. 

Browne,  hke  his  contemporaries, was  a  good  deal  engrossed, 
though  not  morbidly,  with  thoughts  of  Death  and  the  here- 
after. Sleep  is  so  like  death  to  him  that  he  "  dare  not  trust 
it  without  prayer  and  an  half  adieu  to  the  world  "  ;  but 
he  is  not  afraid  of  it,  any  more  than  "  a  well-resolved  Chris- 
tian "  should  be.  What  is  it  to  die  ?  Why,  "  to  cease  to 
breathe,  to  take  a  farewell  of  the  elements,  to  be  a  kind  of 
nothing  for  a  moment,  to  be  within  one  Instant  of  a  Spirit  ". 
As  tq  what  comes  after  death,  he  believes  of  course  in 
both  Heaven  and  Hell,  but  thinks  not  overmuch  about  the 
latter — "  I  can  hardly  think  there  was  ever  any  scared  into 
Heaven ;  they  go  the  fairest  way  to  Heaven  that  would 
serve  God  without  a  hell  ".  His  view  of  Heaven  is  deeply 
spiritual :  "  the  necessary  mansions  of  our  restored  selves 
are  those  two  contrary  and  incompatible  places  that  we  call 
Heaven  and  Hell.  .  .  When  the  soul  hath  the  full  measure 
and  complement  of  happiness  ;  when  the  boundless  appe- 
tite of  that  spirit  remains  completely  satisfied,  that  it  can 
neither  desire  addition  or  alteration,  that,  I  think,  is  truly 
Heaven,  and  this  can  only  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  that 
essence,  whose  infinite  goodness  is  able  to  terminate  the 
desires  of  itself,  and  the  insatiable  wishes  of  ours  ;  wherever 
God  will  thus  manifest  Himself,  there  is  Heaven,  though 
within  the  circle  of  this  sensible  world.  Thus  the  soul  of 
man  may  be  in  Heaven  anywhere  ". 

We  have  lingered  a  Uttle  over  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  be- 
cause his  mysticism  is  typical  of  a  new  world  of  thought 
and  emotion.  Quaint  he  certainly  was — "  coint  "  in  the  old 
French  sense  of  "  adorned  " — his  mysticism  was  adorned 
with. all  the  curious  ornaments]of  his  own  predilection,  some- 
of  them  archaic,  some  provincial,  a  few  even  grotesque,  but 
they  were  set  to  beautify  a  very  rich  and  inviting  house  of 
thought.    Even  if  it  is  true,  as  Pater  said,  that  "  to  Browne 


190  BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

the  whole  world  was  a  museum  ;  all  the  grace  and  beauty  it 
has  being  of  a  somewhat  mortified  kind  ",  yet  "  over  it  all 
was  the  perpetual  flicker  of  a  surviving  spiritual  fire,  one 
day  to  reassert  itself  ".  As  he  himself  put  it,  "  All  Ufe,  all 
actions  have  their  spring  in  the  Resurrection." 

It  will  not  be  out  of  place  here  to  mention  another  lumin- 
ary of  seventeenth  century  Mysticism,  who  in  'some  respects 
— his  joy  in  Nature,  for  example — resembles  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  but  whose  light  has  only  recently  reached  us.  Mr. 
Bertram  Dobell  was  the  astronomer  to  whose  patience  and 
discrimination  the  discovery  of  the  new  star  was  due.^ 
Traherne,  a  di\'ine  of  little  interest  before,  has  now  an  abiding 
interest  for  all  lovers  of  poetry  and,  still  more,  of  magnificent 
English  prose,  for  his  prose  is  better  than  his  poetry.  Of  his 
life  Httle  is  known.  An  Oxford  scholar,  he  became  chaplain 
in  the  household  of  the  Sir  Orlando  Bridgeman,  Keeper  of 
the  Privy  Seal  under  Charles  II,  and  died  in  1674,  probably 
in  middle  age,  but  the  date  of  his  birth  is  uncertain,  most 
Hkely  about  1636.  His  chief  memorials  are  his  Poems  and 
the  "  Centuries  of  Meditations  ",  that  is,  meditations 
arranged  in  groups  of  hundreds.  There  are  four  complete 
centuries,  and  the  beginnings  of  another. 

^  The  story  of  the  discovery  of  Traherne's  writings  (see  Poetical 
Works  of  Thomas  Traherne.  Introduction  by  Bertram  Dobell)  is 
curious.  A  friend  of  Mr.  Dobell's  found  the  MS.  of  Traherne's 
Poems  and  Meditations  in  the  rubbish-box  of  a  book-stall  in 
the  Charing  Cross  Road.  He  bought  them  for  a  few  pence,  and 
soon  recognized  their  worth  wdthout,  however,  the  faintest  clue 
as  to  their  authorship.  Dr.  Grosart,  a  critic,  took  an  interest  in 
the  investigation  and  finally  ascribed  the  authorship  of  the  poems 
to  Vaughan.  He  was  just  about  to  publish  an  edition  of  Vaughan, 
with  Traherne's  poems  added,  when  he  died,  and  the  Traherne  MS. 
passed,  after  a  little,  into  Mr.  Dobell's  hands,  who,  after  a  long 
series  of  inquiries,  identified  poems  and  prose  alike  as  the  work 
of  Traherne,  who  hitherto  had  only  been  known  for  a  few  books 
on  theology  of  no  great  mark.  In  one  of  these,  however,  a  poem 
in  the  newly  discovered  collection  was  found,  and  this  formed  one 
of  the  chief  links  of  identification. 


THOMAS  TRAHERNE  191 

In  mind  and  mood  Traherne  shares  in  part  the  spirit  of 
the  early  Carohne  poets,  in  part  that  of  the  Cambridge  Pla- 
tonists.  His  Christianity  is  as  ardent  as  theirs,  and  there 
is  no  mist  of  Pantheism  in  the  extraordinary  felicity  and 
splendour  of  his  view  of  Nature.  In  one  respect  he  resembles 
Vaughan,  and,  later,  Wordsworth.  He  looked  on  childhood, 
and  back  at  his  own  childhood,  as  being  a  time  in  which 
hints  and  flashes  of  heaven  and  of  God  were  all  around  him 
before  the  world  closed  in.  His  childhood  was  set  like  a 
little  spit  of  land  amidst  "  murmurs  and  scents  of  the  infinite 
sea ".  His  account  of  his  child-thoughts  is  one  of  the 
most  rare  and  fascinating  pages  of  autobiography  anywhere 
to  be  found.  1 

He  begins  his  book  by  a  wise  saying,  "  As  nothing  is  more 
easy  than  to  think,  so  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  think 
well  ".  He  is  going  to  devote  his  life  to  God,  therefore  to 
think  well  is  to  serve  God  in  His  interior  court,  and  the  love 
of  God  is  realized  and  made  our  own  by  meditation.  So  he 
comes  at  once  to  his  great  joyous  theme — not  in  the  least 
"  mortified  " — that  the  world  as  God  made  it  is  very  good, 
and  that  God  is  to  be  discovered  in  it.  "  Everything  is  ours 
that  serves  us  in  its  place.  The  Sun  serves  us  as  much  as  is 
possible,  and  more  than  we  could  imagine.  The  Clouds  and 
Stars  minister  unto  us,  the  World  surrounds  us  with  beauty. "^ 
Yet  we  can  never  enjoy  the  World  aright  till  we  see  how 
"a  sand  exhibiteth  the  wisdom  and  power  of  God", ^  for 
"  some  things  are  little  on  the  outside,  and  rough  and  com- 
mon, but  I  remember  the  time  when  the  dust  of  the  streets 
were  as  pleasing  as  gold  to  my  infant  eyes,  and  now  they  are 
more  precious  to  the  eye  of  reason  ".  Two  qualities,  he 
thinks,  are  needful  to  a  real  enjoyment  of  the  riches  of 
Nature,  the  recognition  whence  they  came,  and  the  unselfish 

^  Centuries  of  Meditations,  pp.  156-179  passim. 

2  Centuries  of  Meditations,  i.   14. 

^  Ibid.  i.  27.  *  Ibid.  i.  25. 


192  BROWNE  AND  TRAHERNE 

sharing  of  them  with  others.  Thus,  "  pigs  eat  acorns,  but 
neither  consider  the  sun  that  gave  them  Hfe,  nor  the  influence 
of  the  heavens  by  which  they  were  nourished,  nor  the  very 
root  of  the  trees  from  whence  they  came.  This  being  the 
work  of  Angels,  who  in  a  wide  and  clear  Hght  see  even  the 
sea  that  gave  them  moisture,  and  feed  upon  that  acorn 
spiritually  while  they  know  the  ends  for  which  it  was 
created  ".^  In  fact,  to  consider  any  good  gift  is  "to  drink 
it  spiritually ;  to  rejoice  in  its  diffusion  is  to  be  of  a  pubhc 
mind  ".  *  Then  he  turns  to  the  thought  of  God's  generosity 
in  desiring  that  we  should  share  and  enjoy  all  this.  "  God 
did  infinitely  for  us  when  He  made  us  to  want  like  Gods,  that 
like  Gods  we  might  be  satisfied.  .  .  Want  in  God  is  treasure 
to  us.  For  had  there  been  no  need  He  would  not  have 
created  the  world.  .  .  .  But  He  wanted  Angels  and  Men, 
Images,  Companions  ;  and  those  He  had  from  aU  eternity  ".' 
Then  he  turns  this  thought  round  on  ourselves  :  "  You 
must  want  like  a  God  that  you  may  be  satisfied  like  God.  .  . 
Wants  are  the  bands  and  cements  between  God  and  our- 
selves. Had  we  not  wanted  we  could  never  have  been 
obliged.  Our  own  wants  are  treasures.  And  if  want  be  a 
treasure,  sure  everything  isso  ".*  So  he  comes  to  the  love 
of  God,  the  love  of  which  he  wonderfully  says  that  it  "  never 
ceases  but  in  endless  things  ".  He  goes  through  all  the 
world  finding  beauty  and  gifts,  till  he  is  brought  up  at  that 
which  "  the  throne  of  dehghts,  the  centre  of  Eternity,  the 
Tree  of  life  ",  and  that  is  the  Saviour's  Cross.  "  God", 
he  exclaims,  "  never  showed  Himself  more  a  God  than  when 
He  appeared  man  ;  never  gained  more  glory  than  when  He 
lost  all  glory  ;  was  never  more  sensible  of  a  sad  estate,  than 
when  He  was  bereaved  of  aU  sense  ".°  He  recognizes  the 
majesty  and  the  power  of  this  Dying  in  the  hves  of  men.' 

^  Centuries  of  Meditations,  i.  26. 

2  Ibid.  i.  27.  '  Ibid.  i.  i,  42.  *  Ibid.  i.  44,  51. 

'  Ibid.  i.  90.  ^  Ibid.     Qi.  i.  60,  61. 


TRAHERNE'S   "MEDITATIONS"  193 

Perhaps  one  may  add  one  or  two  epigrammatic  sayings  of 
this  remarkable  man,  sayings  that  throw  a  sudden  ray  of 
light  on  a  dark  place,  hke  a  sunbeam  falling  into  a  shuttered 
room.  "  I  have  found  that  things  unknown  have  a  secret 
influence  on  the  soul,  and,  like  the  centre  of  the  earth  unseen, 
violently  attract  us  ".  "  Love  has  a  marvellous  property  of 
feehng  in  another.  It  can  enjoy  in  another,  as  well  as 
enjoy  him  ".  "  All  transient  things  are  permanent  in  God  ". 
"It  is  the  glory  of  God  to  give  all  things  in  the  best  of  all 
possible  manners  ".  "  It  is  consonant  with  God's  nature 
that  the  best  things  should  be  the  most  common  ".  "  It  is 
some  part  of  Felicity  that  we  must  seek  her  ". 

With  suchlike  arresting  thoughts  Traherne's  "Meditations" 
are  sown.  They  put  the  earth  and  its  wonders  before  us  in  a 
new  and  entrancing  fashion;  there  is  no  one  in  the  whole 
range  of  mystics  who  looks  on  Nature  just  as  Traherne  does  ; 
we  take  a  fresh  breath,  rub  our  eyes,  and  get  our  gratitude 
newly  back  again,  as  if  indeed  we  were  abroad  with  him  on 
some  sunlit  down,  seeing  with  him  God's  grace  in  every 
"  spire  of  grass  "  and  in  His  "  orient  and  immortal  wheat  ". 


M.C. 


CHAPTER    XI 

Post- Reformation    Mysticism   in    England 

THE    CAROLINE    POETS    AND    THE 
CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS 

BROWNE  and  Traheme  introduce  us  very  fitly  to  the 
group  of  poet-mystics  who  conferred  a  pecuHar 
glory  on  the  English  Church  of  the  early  Seventeenth  cen- 
tury. Browne's  gift  was  "  one  for  the  emotions  and  the 
imagination  ;  he  felt  the  wonder  of  the  world,  he  widened 
the  bounds  of  charity  ;  his  divinity  is  composed  of  these  two 
elements — wonder  and  love  ".^  All  this  is  true  of  Traherne 
while,  perhaps  more  than  Browne,  he  recognized  a  Divine 
order  under  the  scheme  of  Nature,  and  drew  more  resolutely 
in  contemplation  near  to  the  Cross.  Wonder  and  love  ; 
the  reading  of  Nature  and  of  earthly  ordinances — those  of 
the  Church  for  example — as  parables  and  shadows  of  the 
Divine  ;  a  very  definite  feeUng  of  the  Cross  as  the  centre 
round  which  life  groups  itself  ;  these  may  be  taken  as  the 
messages  to  the  world  uttered  by  Donne,  Vaughan,  Crashaw, 
Herbert,  and  the  companion  of  the  two  latter,  who,  though 
not  himself  a  poet,  made  his  life  and  the  lives  of  those  around 
him  a  poem,  Nicholas  Ferrar.  If  it  be  said  that  the  name  of 
m^^stic  more  truly  belongs  to  Donne,  Vaughan,  and  Crashaw 
than  to  Herbert  and  Ferrar,  that  is  true  :  but  Bemerton  and 
Little  Gidding  have  left  a  fragrance  which  is  unmistakably 

*  Prof.  Dowden  :    Puritan  and  Anglican,  p.  68. 


THE   POET-MYSTICS  195 

that  of  the  Saviour's  mystical  utterance,  "  He  that  loc^eih 
his  Ufe  for  my  sake,  the  same  shall  find  it  ". 

John  Donne,  who,  for  curious  and  intricate  fehcity  of 
thought,  most  of  all  the  group,  resembled  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
was  born  in  1573.^  He  was  brought  up  by  an  uncle,  an 
accomplished  Jesuit  priest,  who  sent  him  to  Oxford,  where 
he  formed  a  life-long  friendship  with  Sir  Henry  Wotton, 
Then,  after  the  usual  travel  abroad  of  a  young  man  of  fashion, 
he  entered  himself  at  Lincoln's  Inn  and  became  known  as  a 
shining  member  of  the  most  ^vitty  coterie  of  the  age,  the 
coterie  of  the  Mermaid  Tavern.  In  this  select  circle  sat, 
caroused,  and  conversed  Inigo  Jones,  John  Seiden,  Ben 
Jonson,  Michael  Drayton,  and  no  doubt  the  great  and  mys- 
terious Shakespeare  himself.  Among  these,  the  youthful 
Donne  was  known  as  "  a  laureate  wit ;  it  was  impossible 
that  a  vulgar  soul  should  dwell  in  such  promising  features", 
which  shews  that  he  possessed  a  handsome  person  as  well  as  a 
fine  mind.  He  had  at  this  time  no  other  thought  than  that  of 
a  secular  career  ;  he  volunteered  for  the  great  expedition  to 
Cadiz  in  1596,  and  afterwards  became  secretary  in  the  Lord 
Keeper's  household.  At  that  time  he  began  to  throw  off  a 
quantity  of  verse,  sonnets,  lyrics,  love-songs,  elegies,  which 
were  handed  about  amongst  his  friends  in  manuscript.  The 
next  event  in  his  life  was  a  run-away  marriage  with  the 
daughter  of  the  house  in  which  he  was  secretary,  and  this 
led  to  a  short  imprisonment  in  the  Fleet  at  the  hands  of  the 
irate  father,  and  a  long  set-back  in  the  hopes  of  worldly 
success. 

By  this  time  he  had  run  through  his  fortune,  but  by  no 
means  his  friendships.     Donne   always   had   a  genius   for 

^  It  is  interesting  that  he  could  trace  descent  through  a  series 
of  Roman  Catholic  relatives,  all  of  whom  had  suffered  for  their 
faith,  to  the  family  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  His  great  grandmother 
was  the  Margaret  Griggs,  whom  readers  of  Miss  Manning's  '^harming 
"  Household  of  Sir  Thomas  More  "  will  remember. 


196  THE  CAROLINE  POETS 

friendship,  and  his  letters  to  his  various  friends  form  part 
of  the  hterary  legacy  of  liis  hfe.  One  of  his  friends  was  the 
Countess  of  Bedford,  who  held  a  kind  of  court  of  letters 
at  her  great  house  at  Twickenham  ;  another  a  Sir  Henry 
Goodere,  who  had  grown  rich  on  confiscated  Church  land ; 
a  third  M^as  Bishop  Andrewes,  A  great  depression  and  dis- 
illusionment took  hold  of  Donne  at  this  period  ;  he  had 
read  hard  and  made  the  knowledge  and  wisdom  of  the  world 
liis  own  ;  he  was  a  fashionable  poet  and  even  a  Court  favour- 
ite, for  he  often  sat  at  the  Royal  table  amongst  a  group  that 
was  called  "  the  King's  living  hbrary  ".  But  his  writings 
at  the  time  shew  increasing  disgust  with  what  hfe  has 
brought  him,  and  by  degrees  this  turned  to  a  new  interest 
in  rehgion  and  holy  things.  King  James  was  a  shrewd  judge 
of  character,  and  early  marked  out  Donne  as  a  man  who 
ought  to  be  a  priest.  Both  the  first  two  Stuarts  were  keenly 
anxious  to  recruit  the  ranks  of  the  Anghcan  clergy  with 
men  of  character  and  learning.  James  was  sure  that  Donne 
had  the  vocation,  and  told  him  so  three  times,  adding  at 
last  that  if  he  remained  a  layman  he  must  give  up  all  hope 
of  preferment.  At  length,  in  1615,  Donne  yielded  and  was 
ordained,  and  a  year  after  \\  s  made  one  of  the  Royal  chap- 
lains :  and  five  years  later  James,  in  his  own  pecuhar  way, 
appointed  him  to  the  Deanery  of  St.  Paul's. ^  After  the 
custom  of  the  age,  he  held  three  livings  besides,  Sevenoaks, 
Blunham,  and  St.  Dunstan's  in  the  West.  In  this  last-named 
City  parish  dwelt  the  draper  and  angler,  Isaak  Walton,  who 
became  the  Dean's  devoted  disciple  and  friend  and  gave  us 
Donne's  biography  among  the  other  exquisite  httle  "Lives" 
with  which  he  enriched  EngUsh  literature.  Donne  came  to 
the  front  at  once  as  a  great  preacher ;   to  him  we  owe  the 

^  "  Dr.  Donne  ",  said  James,  "  Icnowing  you  love  London,  I  do 
therefore  make  you  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  ;  and,  when  I  have  dined, 
then  do  you  take  your  beloved  dish  home  to  your  study,  say  grace 
there  to  yourself,  and  much  good  may  it  do  you  ". 


JOHN   DONNE  197 

first  missionary  sermon  ever  delivered  in  England,  preached 
before  the  Virginia  Company  of  Adventurers — bishops,  peers, 
clergy,  soldiers,  and  traders — amongst  whom  sat  Nicholas 
Ferrar ;  and  every  year  after  his  Ordination  saw  a  growth 
in  holiness  and  in  insight  into  Divine  things.  Of  his  preach- 
ing Walton  tells  us  quaintly  that  he  was  "  hke  an  angel  from 
a  cloud,  but  in  none  ;  carrying  some,  as  St.  Paul  was,  to 
Heaven  in  holy  raptures,  and  enticing  others  by  a  sacred  art 
and  courtship  to  amend  their  lives  ".  While  another,  per- 
haps rather  unregenerate,  hearer,  wrote  this  rapturous 
couplet  on  the  effect  of  his  words  : 

"  Corrupted  Nature  sorrow 'd  that  she  stood 
So  near  the  danger  of  becoming  good  ". 

The  death  of  wife  and  children,  causing  him  a  grief  from 
whose  melancholy  he  never  fully  recovered,  was  followed 
by  a  visit  to  Germany  as  Chaplain  to  the  English  Embassy, 
which  seriously  enfeebled  his  health.  During  his  last  illness, 
he  composed  some  remarkable  Devotions,  and  also,  seem- 
ingly, his  celebrated  "  Hymn  to  God  the  Father  ",  perhaps, 
in  its  strange  mingling  of  humility  and  daring,  the  most 
characteristic  of  all  his  religious  pieces.  Walton  hints  that 
the  Hymn  was  written  while  its  author's  thoughts  dwelt 
sadly  on  "  those  pieces  that  had  been  loosely — God  knows, 
too  loosely — scattered  in  his  youth  ",  and  which  he  wished 
"  had  been  abortive,  or  so  short-lived  that  his  own  eyes  had 
witnessed  their  funeral ". 

Two  other  characteristic  acts  he  performed  in  his  last 
days.  One  was  the  preparation  of  memorial  gifts  to  his 
friends,  bloodstones,  set  in  gold,  and  engraved  with  the 
figure  of  Christ  crucified,  not  to  a  Cross,  but  to  an  Anchor — 
George  Herbert  was  the  recipient  of  one  of  these  :  the  other 
act  was  the  ordering  of  his  own  monument.  A  painter  was 
sent  for  who  was  required  to  draw  a  picture  of  Donne  in  his 
winding-sheet,  standing  on  a  funeral  urn.    The  Dean  him- 


198  THE  CAROLINE  POETS 

self  was  the  actual  model,  and  the  monument,  the  only 
vestige  of  the  old  Cathedral  which  escaped  the  Great  Fire,  is 
still  to  be  seen  in  St.  Paul's. 

In  earlier  manhood  Donne,  as  it  has  been  said,  was  "  a 
son  of  the  Renaissance,  belated,  born  out  of  his  time  ". 
There  was  the  eager  zest  for  life  and  all  that  it  held,  some- 
thing rich  and  sumptuous,  occasionally  even  unscrupulous, 
in  his  diction,  corresponding  to  those  portraits  of  him  in  his 
prime,  with  bright  eyes  and  curled  hair  and  beard.  Later, 
aU  this  was  subdued  to  the  faith  of  a  humble  Christian,  but 
the  best  of  it  was  transformed,  not  utterly  stifled. 

What  we  notice  about  Donne  as  a  whole  is  his  keen 
individualism.  His  poetry  was  a  revolt  from  the  Eliza- 
bethan school  of  poetry.  That  magnificent  poetry  has  been 
compared  to  music  in  the  sense  that  it  is  universal  in  range  ; 
the  thought  and  emotion  of  [any  great  intellect  or  fancy. 
Shakespeare,  for  example,  has  so  general  a  genius  that  it  is 
impossible,  though  always  tempting,  to  guess  at  his  religion, 
occupation,  tastes  or  hobbies.  But  Donne  speaks  for 
himself  alone,  and  of  experiences  that  could  not  happen  to 
any  mind  but  his.  So  his  ideas  are  often  so  strange  as  to 
give  a  sense  of  shock,  and  the  very  words  seem  hewn  out 
one  by  one.     Here  is  a  verse  on  love  :■ — 

"  Twice  or  thrice  have  I  loved  thee 
Before  I  knew  thy  face  or  name  ; 
So  in  a  voice,  so  in  a  shapeless  flame 
Angels  affect  us  oft,  and  worshipp'd  be  ". 

Donne  will,  in  fact,  reason  upon  everything,  earthly  love 
and  heavenly  as  well,  and  for  this  cause  his  poetry  does 
not  at  all  lend  itself  to  brief  quotation.  Long  poems  Hke 
"  The  Progress  of  the  Soul  ",  and  "  the  Anatomy  of  the 
World  "  must  be  read  through  and  studied,  and  that  with 
care  lest  stray  trivial-seeming  hues  escape  the  attention,  and 
a  treasure  be  missed,  hnes  like,  "  I  must  confess  it  could 
not  choose  but  be  Profane  to  think  thee  anything  but  thee  ", 


HENRY  VAUGHAN  199 

or  (on  death)  "  when  bodies  to  their  graves  souls  from 
their  graves  remove  ".  Donne  "  Uked  a  craggy  subject  to 
break  his  mind  upon  "  ;  he  had  the  courage  to  state  his 
experience,  he  loved  and  was  loved  with  a  rare  devotion, 
and  his  love  to  God  was  of  the  same  intensity.  He  would 
often  say  in  a  kind  of  sacred  ecstasy — "  Blessed  be  God  that 
He  is  God,  only  and  divinely  like  Himself  ". 

Henry  Vaughan  was  born  at  Newton  St.  Bridget  in  Wales 
in  162 1.  He  always  added  the  odd  word  "  Silurist  "  to  his 
signature  of  his  poems  ;  and  this  is  supposed  to  mean  that 
he  laid  emphasis  on  the  claim  of  his  family  to  be  par  excel- 
lence the  Vaughans  of  Wales,  Uving  as  they  did  in  the  South- 
Eastern  part  of  the  principality,  where  once  the  British  tribe 
of  the  Silures  had  dwelt.  All  that  we  know  of  his  life  is 
that  he  went  to  Oxford,  and  then,  as  old  Anthony  k  Wood 
says,  "  the  Civil  War  beginning,  he  was  sent  for  home  to  the 
horror  of  all  good  men,  and  followed  the  pleasant  paths  of 
poetry,  became  noted  for  his  ingenuity,  and  published  several 
specimens  thereof.  He  became  a  physician,  and  was  es- 
teemed by  scholars  as  an  ingenious  person,  but  proud  and 
humorous  ".  In  his  poems  he  at  first  imitated  Donne,  a 
bad  model  for  a  young  poet,  because  of  Donne's  lack  of  form. 
In  1631,  Herbert's  "  Temple  "  came  into  his  hands  and 
altered  his  whole  literary  life.  In  the  preface  to  "  Silex 
Scintillans  ",  his  best  known  book,  he  speaks  of  the  "  blessed 
man  George  Herbert,  whose  holy  life  and  verse  gained  many 
pious  converts,  of  whom  I  am  least ". 

It  is  as  a  mystic  even  more  than  as  a  poet  that  Vaughan 
is  famous.  His  poetry  is  full  of  the  quaint  conceits  and 
ornaments  of  the  period.  But  even  they  point  out  Vaughan's 
great  gift.  He  loved  and  interpreted  Nature  better  than 
any  poet  of  his  day.  To  take  a  few  instances.  On  Dawn 
he  has, 

"  The  whole  creation  shakes  off  night. 
And  for  thy  shadow  looks  the  light ; 


200  THE  CAROLINE  POETS 

Stars  now  vanish  without  number  : 
Sleepie  planets  set  and  slumber. 
The  pursie  clouds  disband  and  scatter  ; 
All  expect  some  sudden  matter  "  : 

and  this  single  line,  "  I  see  a  Rose  bud  in  the  far  East ". 
This  of  the  night  sky,  "  Stars  nod  and  sleep,  and  through 
the  dark  air  spin  a  fiery  thread "  :  of  a  cornfield,  "  the 
purling  corn  ",  alluding  to  its  rustle  in  the  breeze :  of  the 
Earth  at  spring-time,  that  she  "  purples  every  grove  with 
roses  ",  are  examples  of  the  charming  conceits  in  which  his 
poetry  is  rich. 

But  these  would  not  make  the  poet  a  mystic.  Vaughan 
sees  Nature  all  shot  through  with  intimations  of  God,  which 
in  his  thought  take  again  and  again  the  form  of  light.  He 
is  a  very  apostle  of  light,  white  light  ^  too.  He  sees  this 
mortal  life  as  a  half-lit  space  between  two  worlds  of  light. 
We,  exile-like  for  the  time  being,  travel  from  one  to  the 
other.  Hence,  like  Traherne,  he  looks  back  longingly  to 
his  childhood — "  my  striving  eye  dazzles  at  it,  as  at  Eter- 
nity " — and  forward  with  a  sort  of  nostalgia  to  the  light 
that  is  coming.  Even  the  Judgement  Day  is  to  him  a  "  day 
of  life,  of  light,  of  love  ".  "  I  saw  eternity  ",  he  sings,  in 
an  immortal  passage, 

"  I  saw  eternity  the  other  night 
Like  a  great  Ring  of  pure  and  endless  light. 

All  calm,  as  it  was  bright ; 
And  round  beneath  it.  Time,  in  hours,  days,  years, 

Driv'n  hy  the  spheres 
Like  a  vast  shadow  mov'd,  in  which  the  world 
And  all  her  train  were  hurl'd  ". 

As  life  goes  on  and  grows  more  lonely,  the  nostalgia 
is  increased  by  the  ache  of  human  loss  till  he  breaks 
out : — 

^  "  White  "  is  a  favourite  word  of  Vaughan's  :  cf.  "  the  white 
designs  wliich  cliildren  drive  ",  "  Welcomx,  white  day  ",  "  the  old, 
white  Prophets",  "  His  white  and  holy  train",  "  the  white- winged 
Reapers  ",  "  Dear  Saint,  more  white  than  day  ",  etc. 


RICHARD   CRASHAW  201 

"  They  are  all  gone  into  the  world  oi  hght  ! 

And  I  alone  sit  lingering  here  !  " 
"  I  see  them  walldng  in  an  air  of  glory 

Whose  light  doth  trample  on  my  days  ". 

He  has,  too,  the  mystic's  thought  of  God  :  "  There  is  in 
God,  some  say,  a  deep  but  dazzhng  darkness  ", — the  dark- 
ness which  is  excess  of  hght. 

Meanwhile,  the  hght  breaks  through  in  shafts  and  beams 
to  comfort  the  exile's  path,  best  provided  for  by  the  dis- 
ciplined expectation  of  "  inward  quietness  and  clearness  ". 
It  comes  to  the  observant  soul  through  many  chinks  and 
reflected  from  many  mirrors  in  Nature,  but  man,  if  we  may 
take  the  hint  of  Vaughan's  own  title-page,  may  be  also  a 
light-bearer,  silex  scintillans, — a  flint  stone,  perhaps,  but 
a  flint  stone  on  fire  and  sparkling. 

Readers  of  "  John  Inglesant  "  will  remember  how, 
amongst  the  visitors  to  Little  Gidding  in  Shorthouse's 
vivid  description  of  that  wonderful  religious  household, 
was  a  Mr.  Richard  Crashaw,  "  the  poet  of  Peterhouse,  who 
afterwards  went  over  to  the  Papists  and  died  Canon  of 
Loretto  ",  and  how,  walking  in  the  garden,  he  "spoke  of 
the  beauty  of  a  retired  religious  life,  saying  that  here  and 
at  Little  St.  Marie's  Church,  near  to  Peterhouse,  he  had 
passed  the  most  blissful  moments  of  his  life,  watching  at 
midnight  in  prayer  and  meditation  ".  Like  most  of  the 
personal  touches  in  that  remarkable  book,  this  is  exactly 
accurate,  and,  brief  as  it  is,  represents  almost  all  that  we 
know  of  Crashaw.  He  was  born  in  1616,  was  educated  at 
the  Charterhouse  and  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  be- 
came a  Fellow  of  Peterhouse,  and,  in  company  with  sixty- 
five  other  Cambridge  Fellows,  suffered  expulsion  in  1644 
for  a  refusal  to  sign  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  He 
was  received  into  the  Roman  Church,  and  died  in  1650. 
His  mysticism  was  of  the  warmly  coloured,  picturesque, 
Latin  type  ;   his  favourite  subjects  were  the  life  and  suffer- 


202  THE  CAROLINE  POETS 

ings  of  the  Saviour,  the  glories  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and 
the  praise  of  St.  Teresa,  for  whom  he  felt  an  overwhelm- 
ing admiration  and  reverence.  As  we  compare  Vaughan 
and  Crashaw,  we  are  irresistibly  reminded  of  Shelley's 
lines : 

"  Life  like  a  dome  of  many-coloured  glass 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity  ". 

Vaughan  seems  to  live  in  and  for  glimpses  of  that  white 
radiance  :  he  dislikes  the  commingling  of  it  with  earthly 
hues.  But  Crashaw  brings  us  inside  the  "  dome  of  many- 
coloured  glass  ",  and  the  white  light,  to  some  almost  in- 
tolerable, is  broken  up  into  a  myriad  tints  and  glories,  and, 
it  must  be  added,  spangles.  As  a  poet,  Crashaw  was  far 
more  of  a  craftsman,  and  had  a  far  justerearfor  music,  than 
either  Donne  or  Vaughan  ;  when  he  is  really  touched,  he 
can  touch  others  ;  he  had  truly  seen  his  own  vision  and 
heard  in  the  Holy  Mount  "  the  sound  of  words  ".  But 
his  delight  in  his  art  runs  away  with  him,  at  times,  until 
the  art  becomes  artificiality  :  he  places  his  gems  of  thought 
amid  rows  of  decorative  glass  beads,  and  seems  really  to 
leave  the  task  of  discrimination  to  his  reader  without  any 
idea  that  all  is  not  of  the  same  value.  If  St.  Teresa,  the 
soul  of  common  sense  and  humour,  had  ever  read  his  poems 
addressed  to  her,  she  would  probably  have  loved  them  and 
laughed  at  them  at  the  same  time.  Was  there  ever  such 
ode  as  that  in  which  he  first  speaks  of  her,  with  its  magnifi- 
cent beginning,  "  Love,  thou  art  absolute,  sole  lord  of  life 
and  death  ",  its  description  of  the  mystical  Rapture  (which 
yet  follows  close  on  the  intolerable  "  conceit  "  of  the  sera- 
phim who  "  turn  love's  soldiers  "  to  "  exercise  their  arch- 
ery "  upon  the  saint),  and  its  beautiful  close  in  which 
he  depicts  her  in  heaven  ?  But  if  we  would  see  Crashaw 
at  his  best — and  a  poet  should  be  judged  thus — we  can 
always  turn  to  his  lovely  Hymn  of  the  Nativity,  his  version 


THE  FERRARS  AND  HERBERT     203 

of  the  23rd  Psalm,  and  the  contrasts  of  terror  and  tender- 
ness in  his  "  Dies  Irae  ". 

"  O,  that  Trump  !  whose  blast  shall  run 
An  even  round  with  th'  circling  sun, 
And  urge  the  murmuring  graves  to  bring 
Pale  mankind  forth  to  meet  his  King. 
*  *  *  *  * 

"  Dear,  remember  in  that  day 
Who  was  the  cause  Thou  cam'st  this  way  ; 
Thy  sheep  was  strayed,  and  Thou  wouldst  be 
Even  lost  Thyself  in  seeking  me  ". 

Meanwhile  Nicholas  Ferrar,  the  host  of  Crashaw  in  many 
a  quiet  Sunday's  "  retreat  ",  ruled  over  the  holy  house- 
hold at  Little  Gidding,  that  household  (unique  in  religious 
history  as  an  instance  of  an  entire  family  quitting  the  world 
for  the  "  quiet  life  ")  which  was  surely  in  the  poet's  thought 
when  he  sketched  his  "  Description  of  a  Religious  House  "  ; 
and  George  Herbert,  the  friend  of  Donne  and  the  inspirer 
of  Vaughan,  exchanging  the  life  of  the  successful  courtier 
for  that  of  the  humble  parish  priest  of  Bemerton,  was, 
through  three  brief  years,  making  exquisite  proof  of  his 
ministry  as  the  Church's  servant  and  poet.  It  was  in  the 
life  of  ordered  service  that  the  Ferrars  and  Herbert  alike 
found  their  sure  experience  of  God,  and  through  it  that 
they  drew  many  to  a  like  ideal  of  self-renunciation  and 
charity.  It  was  in  such  a  round  of  service — that  of  "  the 
priest  to  the  temple  " — that  Herbert  felt  the  near  Pres- 
ence of  his  Saviour  and  sang  it  to  such  measures  that  his 
poems, — with  Keble's  "  Christian  Year  " — serve,  and  will 
always  serve,  to  indicate  and  recall  to  men's  minds  the 
peculiar  ideals  and  attractiveness  of  the  English  Church, 
its  gravity,  its  mild  rule,  its  sober  beauty,  its  temperate 
delight  in  Nature  and  in  Roason  as  intermediaries  for  com- 
munion with  God.  Of  these  ideals  the  Ferrars  and  George 
Herbert  were  prophets,  and  the  latter,  indeed,  with  his  high 
gifts  as  a  religious  poet — imagination,  and  a  curious  felicity 


204  THE   CAMBRIDGE   PLATONISTS 

of  diction  set  off  by  a  touching  homeliness — an  especially 
persuasive  one.  The  Great  Rebellion  broke  rudely  in 
upon  a  movement  towards  a  retired  and  holy  life  of  which 
there  are  many  indications,  a  movement  which  was  gather- 
ing real  and  vital  force.  Perhaps  the  true  ideal  of  the  Church 
of  England  was  never  nearer  realization  than  on  the  eve  of 
the  Civil  War,  which  temporarily  destroyed  so  much  that 
belonged  to  its  deepest,  if  hidden,  life,  but  was  just  in  the 
delicate  stage  of  formation.  It  is  true,  however,  that  some 
power  was  needed  to  reinforce  in  the  Church  the  strength 
of  the  devout  life  as  manifested  by  the  beautiful,  but  exotic, 
rule  of  Little  Gidding,  and  the  sweet  and  serious,  but  not 
very  robust,  'discipline  outlined  by  George  Herbert.  This 
strength  was  afforded  by  the  school  of  thinkers  whom  we 
come  next  to  consider,  and  whose  clearness  of  outlook  and 
depth  of  spirituality  were  found  not  only  proof  against  the 
distractions  of  the  Commonwealth  period,  but  have  left 
a  lasting  legacy  to  the  Church  of  "  light  and  life  and 
love  ". 


II 

The  "  Cambridge  Platonists  ",  as  this  school  of  thinkers 
and  group  of  delightful  men  is  usually  termed,  won  their 
title  by  their  combination  of  a  real  Christian  faith  with 
a  reverent  following  after  the  teaching  of  Plato  and  his 
great  disciple,  the  mystic  Plotinus.  But  in  no  extravagant 
sense.  They  saw,  as  Plato  saw,  the  world  as  the  mirror  of 
Deity,  the  reflection  of  the  Ideal ;  they  sought  after  God, 
as  Plotinus  sought,  by  the  way  of  meditation  from  which 
the  expectation  of  Immediacy  of  contact  was  not  absent ; 
but  they  gloried  in  the  fullest  use  of  all  human  faculties, 
and  not  in  their  denial.  For  them  no  Via  Negativa  ;  rather, 
they  insisted  on  the  employment  of  the  Reason,  as  the 
Divine  prerogative  of  man,  and  claimed  for  Religion  the 


THE    "  LATITUDINARIANS  "  205 

whole  field  of  the  intellectual  life,  just  as  Herbert  claimed 
music  and  poetry,  and  Cromwell  politics  and  war,  and  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  science  and  letters.     They  believed  that 
there  can  be  no  ultimate  contradiction  between  philosophy 
or  science  and  the  Christian  Faith,  and  so  they  succeeded, 
through  dark  and  troublous  times,  in  keeping  a  bright  future 
before  their  eyes — they  were  splendid  optimists.     "  Rea- 
son ",  they  taught,  "  doth  depend  upon  self -improvement 
by  meditation,  consideration,   and  prayer  and  the  like". 
"  Then  also  it  is  the  Divine  governor  of  men's  life  ;   it  is  a 
light  flowing  from  the  Fountain  and  Father  of  lights". 
Benjamin  Whichcote,  one  of  their  number,  exclaims,  "  It 
ill  becomes  us  to  make  our  intellectual  faculties  Gibeonites  ", 
and  John  Smith,  another  of  the  group,  finely  adds,  "  That 
which  enables  us  to  know  aright  the  things  of  God  must 
be  a  living  principle  of  holiness  within  us.     Some  men  have 
too  bad  hearts  to  have  good  heads.     He  that  will  find  truth 
must  seek  it  with  a  free  judgment  and  a  sanctified  mind  ". 
Like  Browne,  these  men  and  their  companions  contrived 
to  live  through  all  the  worries  and  plagues  of  the  Civil  War 
in  strangely  peaceful  and  undisturbed  fashion,  radiating 
little  circles  of  tranquil  light  around  them.     In  an  age  of 
hot-headedness   they   won   by   their   balanced   judgement 
and   persistent   charity   the   name  of   "  Latitudinarians  ". 
Of    such     breadth     of     mind    as    theirs,    the    more    the 
better  ! 

Benjamin  Whichcote,  whom  we  may  take  as  the  first 
example  of  the  group,  entered  Emmanuel  College  in  1626. 
Both  Universities  must  have  been  wonderful  places  to  know 
just  before  the  Civil  War.  The  brilliant  Court  of  Charles 
I.  stayed  again  and  again  at  Oxford,  and  the  King  and  Queen, 
with  Laud  and  Sanderson,  Falkland,  Hales,  and  Chilling- 
worth  might  have  been  seen  walking  in  the  Grove  of  Trinity 
or  in  Christ  Church  meadows ;  while  at  Cambridge  in  a 
single  day  one  could  have  met  Milton  and  Thomas  Fuller, 


2o6  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS 

George  Herbert,  Crashaw,  and  Jeremy  Taylor.  Amid 
such  company  Whichcote  moved,  and  in  1630  became  Tutor 
in  his  College.  Bishop  Burnet  tells  us  that  \Vhichcote 
"  set  his  students  much  on  reading  the  ancient  philoso- 
phers, chiefly  Plato,  Tully,  and  Plotin,  and  on  considering 
the  Christian  religion  as  a  doctrine  sent  by  God  both  to 
elevate  and  sweeten  human  nature  ".  In  addition  to  being 
"  a  wise  and  kind  instructor  ",  he  became  noted  as  a 
preacher,  and  for  twenty  years  gave  the  Sunday  afternoon 
lectures  in  Trinity  College  Chapel  to  throngs  of  delighted 
hearers.  When  the  Civil  War  came,  Cambridge  was  filled 
with  Puritan  troopers,  for  the  Eastern  Counties  were  mostly 
hot  for  the  Parliament^;  but  Whichcote  remained  undis- 
turbed and  imperturbable.  Indeed,  he  was  made  Provost 
of  King's  in  1644  when  Dr.  Collins  was  turned  out  for  Royal- 
ism,  and  it  is  good  to  find  him  insisting  that  his  predecessor 
should  receive  half  the  stipend  throughout  his  lifetime. 
Not  only  did  Whichcote  refuse  himself  to  take  the  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant,  but  he  got  most  of  the  Fellows  of 
King's  excused  also.  He  must  have  been  a  man  of  winning 
temperament  and  of  strong  character,  for  he  was  so  re- 
spected as  to  become  Vice-Chancellor  under  the  new  regime, 
and  was  consulted  by  CromweU  on  the  question  of  granting 
toleration  to  the  Jews.  After  the  Restoration,  ejected  in 
turn  from  his  Provostship,  he  became  first  a  country  and 
then  a  City  rector,  and  of  his  parochial  ministry  we  are 
told  that  he  preached  constantly,  looked  after  the  children's 
education  (often  at  his  own  expense),  relieved  distress,  and 
made  up  quarrels  among  his  neighbours.  One  instance 
of  his  charity  we  know — he  left  provision  for  relief  to  poor 
housekeepers  disabled  by  age  or  sickness. 

His  sermons  were  often  prefaced  by  this  prayer  :  "  Oh  ! 
naturalize  us  to  heaven  !  May  we  bear  the  image  of  Christ's 
resurrection  by  spirituality  and  heavenly-mindedness.  O 
Lord,  communicate^Thy  light  to  our  minds.  Thy  life  to  our 


BENJAMIN   WHICHCOTE  207 

souls.  ...  Go  over  the  workmanship  of  Thy  creation  in 
us  again  ..."  Religion  in  his  view  is  natural  and  vital 
to  man,  and  can  never  be  disallied  from  truth  :  "  We  are 
as  capable  of  religion  as  we  are  of  reason  ".  "  Religion 
is  the  first  sense  of  man's  soul,  the  temper  of  his  mind,  the 
pulse  of  his  heart  ".  Again  :  "  the  mind  makes  no  more 
resistance  to  truth  than  the  air  does  to  light  ",  and,  taking 
the  conception  higher,  "  The  soul  of  man  to  God  is  as  the 
flower  to  the  sun  ;  it  opens  at  its  approach  and  shuts  when 
it  withdraws  ".  He  talks  of  Redemption  thus  :  "  It  is  a 
Divine  nature  in  us,  a  Divine  assistance  over  us  "  ;  and,  at 
a  time  when  the  total  depravity  of  human  nature  was 
roundly  asserted,  he  points  to  a  higher  thought  of  man's 
potentialities  :  "  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  hath  more 
of  God  in  it  than  man  hath  ",  and  again,  "  Have  a  rever- 
ence to  thyself,  for  God  is  in  thee  ".  For  Conscience  he 
has  a  beautiful  and  characteristic  term,  "  the  home-God  ". 
But  why  ?  Because  of  his  view  of  the  salvation  which 
Christ  brought.  To  the  hard  legal  views  of  the  age,  where- 
in Christ's  righteousness  is,  as  something  external  to  man, 
imputed  to  man  almost  artificially,  Whichcote  opposed  the 
belief  in  an  actual  vital  at-one-ment  wrought  within  the 
soul.  "  We  come  at  that  which  Christ  hath  done  for  us 
with  God  by  what  He  hath  done  for  us  within  us  ".  "  They 
deceive  themselves  who  think  of  reconciliation  with  God 
by  means  of  a  Saviour  acting  upon  God  in  their  behalf,  and 
not  also  working  in  them  to  make  them  God-like  ".  "  Hea- 
ven is  first  a  temper,  then  a  place  ".  With  this  belief — as 
old  as  Christian  Mysticism — in  the  inward  immanent  Christ, 
he  built  up  his  wonderful  breadth  of  charity.  "  Men's 
apprehensions-",  he  cries,  "  can  be  no  more  alike  than 
their  faces  are  set  in  one  mould  ",  but  he  is  a  friend  to  all 
who  manifest  the  Christ-life. 

There   is   a  well-known   passage  in   "  John   Inglesant  " 
in  which  the  hero,  visiting  "  Lady  Cardiff "  at  "  Oulton  ", 


2o8  THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS 

comes  across  Dr.  Henry  More,  the  Cambridge  Platonist.i 
The  passage  is  worth  quoting,  inasmuch  as  the  words  put  into 
More's  mouth  are  his  own,  culled  from  various  sources, 
and  sum  up  very  aptly  this  remarkable  man's  attitude  to- 
wards Nature  and  towards  God.  "  One  fine  and  warm 
day  in  the  early  spring,  Inglesant  and  the  Doctor  were  walk- 
ing in  the  garden  at  the  side  of  the  house  bordering  the 
chase  and  park.  .  .  .  The  Doctor  began,  as  upon  a  favour- 
ite theme,  to  speak  of  his  great  sense  of  the  power  and  bene- 
fit of  the  fresh  air.  '  I  would  always  ',  he  said,  '  be  sub 
dio  if  it  were  possible.  ...  I  can  read,  discourse,  and 
think  nowhere  as  well  as  in  some  arbour,  where  the  cool 
air  rustles  through  the  moving  leaves  ;  and  what  a  rap- 
ture of  mind  does  such  a  scene  as  this  always  inspire  within 
me  !  To  a  free  and  divine  spirit  how  lovely,  how  magni- 
ficent is  this  state  for  the  soul  of  man  to  be  in,  when,  the 
life  of  God  inactuating  her,  she  travels  through  heaven 
and  earth,  and  unites  with,  and  after  a  sort  feels  herself,  the 
life  and  soul  of  the  whole  world,  even  as  God  !  This  indeed 
is  to  become  Deiform — not  by  imagination,  but  by  union 
of  life.  God  doth  not  ride  me  whither  I  know  not  :  but 
discourseth  with  me  as  a  friend,  and  speaks  to  me  in  such 
a  dialect  as  I  understand  fully — namely,  the  outward  world 
of  His  creatures,  so  that  I  am  in  fact  "  Incola  coeli  in  terra  ", 
an  inhabitant  of  Paradise  and  heaven  upon  earth  ;  and  I 
may  soberly  confess  that  sometimes,  walking  abroad  after 
my  studies,  I  have  been  almost  mad  with  pleasure — the 
effect  of  Nature  upon  my  soul  having  been  inexpressibly 
ravishing.  ...  No  !  I  am  not  out  of  my  wits,  as  some 
fondly  interpret  me,  in  this  divine  freedom,  but  the  love 
of  God  compelleth  me '  ".  ^     Here  of  course  we  get  very 

1  Inglesant  is  of  course  an  imaginary  personage,  but  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  household  at  "  Oulton",  with  its  strange  assemblage  of 
mystics  and  charlatans,  is  true  to  life  of  Lady  Conway's  establish- 
ment at  Ragle}^  More's  constant  resort. 

2  Shorthouse  :    John  Inglesant,  ch.  xvii. 


HENRY  MORE  209 

near  the  Mystical  doctrine  of  centuries  back, — deification, 
and  the  Ecstasy. 

The  man  who  at  times  spoke  words  Hke  these  Hved  all 
his  life  in  a  great  calm.  His  environment,  whether  of  men 
or  affairs,  mattered  little  to  him,  so  long  as  he  possessed 
the  unfailing  joys  of  Nature  and  of  the  inner  life.  He  dil 
not  care  to  adjust  himself  to  outward  changes  in  Church 
and  State ;  like  Whichcote,  he  simply  ignored  them.  As  a 
little  boy  at  Eton,  he  had  worried  himself  about  the  myste- 
ries of  necessity  and  free-will,  and  the  problem  of  hell,  making 
up  his  mind  at  last,  as  he  mused  in  the  playground  "  with 
a  musical  and  melancholic  murmur ",  that  if  he  were 
predestined  to  Hell,  he  would  behave  himself  as  well  as 
possible  there,  "  being  persuaded  that  if  I  thus  demeaned 
myself,  God  would  not  keep  me  long  in  that  place  ".  This 
persuasion  of  the  Divine  justice  and  goodness  remained 
with  him  all  his  life,  and  the  influence  of  the  little  "  Theo- 
logia  Germanica  "  quickened  it  to  a  steady  and  burning 
love  of  God. 

In  1631  More  entered  Christ's  College,  a  tall,  thin  youth 
of  "  rapt  expression ",  and  made  friends  with  Whichcote 
and  his  circle.  He  took  orders,  but  would  seldom  preach, 
and  refused  all  advancement,  declining  in  turn  as  the  years 
went  on  the  Mastership  of  his  College,  two  Deaneries,  and 
two  Bishoprics.  He  believed  he  could  do  the  Church  greater 
service  in  a  private  station  ;  and  a  host  of  pupils  and  friends 
gathered  round  him  by  whom  he  seems  to  have  been  re- 
garded as  a  kind  of  oracle.  His  character,  in  truth,  showed 
a  rare  combination  of  intellectuality  and  saintliness,  mystical 
insight,  and  a  charming  sanity  and  courtliness  of  manners. 
He  died  in  1687. 

One  or  two  sentences  from  his  writings  will  serve  to  indi- 
cate some  main  trends  of  his  thought.  "  The  soul  of  man 
is  a  little  medal  of  God  ".  "  The  oracle  of  God  is  not  to 
be  heard  save  in  His  holy  temple,  that  is,  in  a  good  and 

M.C.  P 


210  THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS 

holy  man,  sanctified  in  spirit,  soul  and  body  ".  "  If  we 
would  teach  others,  we  must  adapt  ourselves  in  part  to 
their  capacity,  for  he  that  will  lend  his  hand  unto  another 
fallen  into  a  ditch,  must  himself,  though  not  fall,  yet  stoop 
and  incline  his  body  ",■ — excellent  charity  and  common 
sense.  He  is  sharply  opposed  to  two  tendencies  in  Mysti- 
cism, that  of  the  Via  Negativa  of  approach  to  God,^  and 
that  of  making  little  of  the  external  facts  of  the  Gospel  and 
the  historical  Christ  ;  with  the  latter  mistake  he  charges 
the  Quakers.  The  resistance  to  these  two  inclinations,  com- 
mon to  so  many  mystics,  in  one  who  undoubtedly  possessed 
the  capacity  for  the  true  mystical  ecstasy,  is  remarkable. 
Of  all  the  Platonist  group  he  evinced  most  clearly  the  com- 
bination of  psychic  with  spiritual  powers.  Like  Thoreau, 
he  possessed,  for  example,  an  extraordinary  power  of  attract- 
ing animals,  playing  often  \vith  birds,  which  would  sit 
singing  on  his  fist,  and  even,  we  are  told,  with  snakes. 

John  Smith,  whom  we  will  take  as  our  last  example  of 
the  Platonist  school,  was  born  in  1618  of  aged  parents  who 
had  been  long  childless,  and  was  therefore  compared  by 
Bishop  Patrick  to  John  the  Baptist.  There  is  little  to  tell 
of  his  life  ;  he  entered  at  Cambridge  in  1636,  and  became 
the  associate  of  Whichcote  and  More  ;  and,  after  a  brief 
career  of  intense  study  and  keen  evangelical  fervour,  he 
died  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-four.  His  short  life  and  his 
sermons,  however,  left  a  deep  and  abiding  impression,  which 
may  be  compared  to  that  of  Hurrell  Froude  in  the  Oxford 
Movement,  though  Smith's  was  by  far  the  more  gracious 
and  disciplined  nature  of  the  two. 

In  the  mid-seventeenth  century  when  men  were  splitting 

1  "  The  waste,  silent  solitude  "  found  by  those  who  "  make  their 
whole  nature  desolate  of  all  animal  figurations  whatever  "  has,  he 
thinks,  nothing  Divine  about  it ;  it  really  proceeds  from  "  the 
stillness  and  fixedness  of  melancholy  "  of  their  own  oppressed  animal 
nature. 


i 


JOHN    SMITH  211 

hairs  about  predestination  and  the  scheme  of  salvation, 
imputed  righteousness  and  the  Uke,  Smith  dealt  with  themes 
such  as  these  :  God  in  His  world — Divine  Immanence  ; 
God  in  man — the  kinship  of  the  Divine  and  the  Human  ; 
God  in  Christ — the  Incarnation  ;  God  in  Himself — the 
"  Altogether  Lovely  ".  A  few  extracts  from  his  discourse 
will  illustrate  the  tone  of  his  teaching,  and  its  epigrammatic 
force. 

"  The  world  is  in  God,  rather  than  God  in  the  world  ". 
"  He  could  not  write  His  image  so  that  it  could  be  read, 
save  only  in  rational  natures.  Whenever  we  look  upon  our 
own  souls  in  a  right  manner,  we  shall  find  an  Urim  and 
Thummim  there ".  "  Faith  is  that  which  unites  man 
more  and  more  to  the  centre  of  life  and  love  ".  "  The  foun- 
dation of  heaven  and  hell  is  laid  in  men's  own  souls  ". 
"  The  Gospel  ...  is  that  whereby  God  comes  to  dwell  in 
us,  and  we  in  Him  ".  "  Religion  is  life  and  spirit,  which, 
flowing  out  from  the  source  of  all  life,  returns  to  Him  again 
as  into  its  original,  carrying  the  souls  of  good  men  up  with 
it ".  "  It  is  only  life  which  can  fully  converse  with  life  ". 
He  has  a  sound  and  beautiful  bit  of  teaching  on  the  subject 
of  the  mystical  Ecstasy.  "  Who  can  tell  the  delights  of 
these  mysterious  converses  with  the  Deity,  when  reason 
is  turned  into  sense,  and  faith  becomes  vision  ?  .  .  .  By 
the  Platonists'  leave,  this  light  and  knowledge  (that  of  the 
'  contemplative  man  ')  peculiarly  belongs  to  the  true  and 
sober  Christian.  This  life  is  nothing  else  but  an  infant- 
Christ  formed  in  the  soul.  But  we  must  not  mistake  ;  this 
knowledge  is  here  but  in  its  infancy  ". 

"  He  lived ",  said  Bishop  Patrick,  who  preached  his 
funeral  sermon,  "  by  faith  in  the  Son  of  God  "  ;  and  this 
faith  was  "  of  a  kind  to  draw  down  heaven  into  the  heart. 
He  lived  in  a  continual  sweet  enjoyment  of  God  ".  This 
may  be  said  of  his  school  in  general.  The  Cambridge  Pla- 
tonists were  believers  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Inner  Light, 


212  THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS 

which  was  to  attain  so  well-marked  a  place  in  English  reli- 
gious thought  under  the  influence  and  teaching  of  George 
Fox  and  his  followers.  But  they  identified  it,  in  Dean 
Inge's  words,  "  with  the  purified  reason  ".  Through  this 
medium  they  beheld  and  loved  the  world  in  its  order  and 
beauty ;  by  this  means  they  followed  after  and  felt  the 
Divine  warmth  and  guidance  in  their  lives.  With  them, 
as  Mr.  A.  E.  George  beautifully  puts  it,  "  the  tree  of  know- 
ledge grows  beside  the  tree  of  life".^ 

^  E.  A.  George  :  Men  of  Latitude  in  the  Seventeenth  Century,  p. 
I02.  Mr.  George's  book  contains  admirable  sketches  of  Whichcote, 
More,  and  Smith,  as  well  as  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  and  others,  and 
I  should  like  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  his  pages,  as  to  those 
of  Dr.  Inge,  for  several  of  the  quotations  from  the  ^v^itings  of  the 
Cambridge  Platonists  given  above. 


CHAPTER    XII 
Puritan    Mystics — Bunyan    and  Fox 

WHAT  the  Cambridge  Platonists  sought  and  found 
in  their  own  serene  and  reflective  fashion  was 
the  theme  and  goal  of  numberless  perplexed  souls — and 
sects — in  their  troublous  times.  The  temporary  break- 
down of  the  English  Church  system,  with  its  quieting  and 
consoling  influence — a  break-down  perhaps  bound  to  come 
as  the  result  of  the  disruptive  tendencies  of  two  opposed 
schools  of  thought  strugghng  for  mastery  within  the  Church, 
but  certainly  hastened  by  the  arbitrary  rigour  of  Laud's 
enforcement  of  the  "  beauty  of  holiness  ",  the  fine  watch- 
word of  a  mind  at  once  thoroughly  devout  and  thoroughly 
Erastian — this  break-down  left  the  Commonwealth  period 
the  confused  scene  of  all  sorts  of  attempts,  individual  and 
organized,  to  realize  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.  ^  The 
absence  of  any  system  of  Church  government  having  a 
moral  sanction  in  the  consciences  of  people — for  Presby- 
terianism  was  an  exotic,  and  an  exotic  transplanted  from 
an  unfriendly  soil — allowed  full  scope  for  the  most  diverse 
religious  experiments,  some  of  them  affecting  not  only  the 
inner  hfe,  but  the  fabric  of  society  and  of  the  family.     A 

^  Thus,  even  of  William  Dell,  one  of  Cromwell's  army  chaplains, 
and  a  man  of  real  truth  and  insight,  Baxter  could  write,  that  "  he 
took  Reason,  Sound  Doctrine,  Order,  and  Concord,  to  be  intolerable 
maladies  of  Church  and  State,  because  they  were  the  greatest 
strangers  to  his  mind  ". 

S18 


214       PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

number  of  strange  religious  communities  sprang  up,  such 
as  the  Ranters,  Seekers,  and  Muggletonians,  the  Family 
of  Love,  the  Levellers,  and  Diggers,  amongst  the  last  of 
which  Gerrard  Winstanley  deserves  more  than  a  passing 
word.  Meanwhile,  certain  older  bodies  such  as  the  Bap- 
tists and  Independents  went  on  their  appointed  way,  and 
last,  but  not  least,  the  Quakers,  summing  up  into  a  focus 
all  the  vague  and  diffused  teaching  as  to  the  Inner  Light, 
had  their  momentous  beginning  under  the  leadership  of 
George  Fox.  It  is  with  the  individual,  rather  than  with 
any  society,  however,  that  Mysticism  has  its  business,  and 
therefore  we  shall  do  well  to  select  and  examine  certain 
well-marked  characters  and  lives,  and  to  consider  them  as 
representative  of  what  was  best  in  the  spiritual  thought 
and  teaching — a  confused  medley,  at  hrst  glance, — of  the 
period.  That  it  was,  at  any  rate,  a  time  of  "  Sturm  und 
Drang  "  for  the  soul  is  evident ;  the  painful,  often  blim- 
dering,  search  after  what  was  true  and  real  and  would  bear 
the  stress  of  life  was  going  on  on  every  hand  ;  conventions 
had  broken  down,  and  in  numberless  Ccises  the  soul  felt 
itself  nakedly  face  to  face  with  its  Maker. 

This  is,  as  Professor  Gardiner  has  said,  the  essence  of 
Puritanism  ;  and  in  that  sense  we  can  take  John  Bunyan 
as  a  type  of  the  Puritan  mystic.  But  in  truth  the  title, 
if  it  tempt  us  to  limit  the  power  and  range  of  Bunyan 's 
religious  genius,  is  a  little  misleading.  Bunyan's  theology 
was  certainly  Puritan,  but  his  soul  was  much  larger  than 
his  theology.  There  is  nothing  distinctively  Puritan  in 
his  wise,  warm-hearted  outlook  on  human  life,  and  he  was, 
it  may  be  remembered,  brought  up  as  a  faithful  son  of  the 
Church  of  England.  No  one  loved  bell-ringing  more  than 
he  ;  no  one,  to  start  with,  enjoyed  more  unreservedly  the 
observance  of  King  James'  "  Book  of  Sports  " — witness 
the  "  tip-cat  "  on  Sundays — none,  by  his  own  statement, 
felt  a  more  affectionate  reverence  for  the  parson  and  clerk. 


JOHN   BUNYAN  215 

or  believed  more  firmly  in  their  well-nigh  supernatural 
virtues.  He  tells  us  he  was  much  attracted  and  wrought 
upon  by  the  Church  service  and  the  vesture  of  the  minister  ; 
and  though  he  drifted  away  from  all  this,  and  his  after  days 
of  hardship  and  captivity  must  have  made  him  look  with 
changed  eyes  upon  the  Church  of  England,  yet  traces  of 
it  all  were  left  with  him.  The  cheerfulness,  the  homely 
loving-kindness,  the  recognition  of  the  place  in  religion  "of 
mirth  and  of  all  human  affections,  which  shine  out  so  not- 
ably in  the  Second  Part  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  ",  are  not 
in  the  least  characteristic  of  the  customary  Puritan  stand- 
point of  his  age.  Who  is  it  who  has  remarked  that  the 
bell-ringing  which  Bunyan  denied  himself  in  Elstow  steeple 
is  heard  by  Christian  again  and  again  from  within  the 
Holy  City,  as  he  nears  the  welcome  of  its  shining  walls  ? 

But  all  this  came  later.  What  entitled  Bunyan  to  the 
name  of  mystic,  and  without  doubt  gave  him  his  power 
and  certainty  in  deaUng  with  the  secrets  of  character  and 
the  mysteries  of  human  souls— so  that  he  came  to  be  known 
in  after  life  as  "  Bishop  "  Bunyan — was  his  own  tremen- 
dous spiritual  struggle,  his  own  anguish  of  heart  and  hardly- 
won  peace.  By  these  Bunyan  makes  his  appeal  to  all  who 
awake  to  the  reality  of  these  three  vast  factors  in  the  drama 
of  the  spiritual  Ufe,  God,  Evil,  and  the  solitary  human 
soul. 

There  are,  then,  two  periods  in  Bunyan's  life,  each  repre- 
sented by  a  great  book.  There  is  the  period  of  crisis,  of 
struggle,  of  conversion,  and  its  story  is  told  in  that  mar- 
vellous autobiography,  "  Grace  Abounding  ".  And  there 
is  the  period  of  fruitful  toil  and  experience,  the  period  too 
of  his  imprisonment,  of  which  the  outward  and  visible  sign 
is  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  ". 

Let  us  note  before  we  go  further,  what  was  the  influence 
that  above  all  others  came  into  Bunyan's  life  and  thought, 
and  gave  him  his  vehicle  of  expression.     Bunyan's  Ian- 


ai6       PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

guage,  so  vigorous,  so  terse,  so  pathetic,  is  the  language  of 
the  Enghsh  Bible  ;  Bunyan's  thought  is  the  thought  of  a 
man  who,  hke  all  his  contemporaries,  took  the  Bible  liter- 
ally. No  criticism  vexed  them  ;  no  gloss,  save  indeed  the 
gloss  of  Calvinism,  disturbed  them  ;  every  word  meant 
just  what  it  said,  every  word  smote  with  a  vivid  freshness 
on  the  eyes  of  the  age  that  had  just  discovered  the  Book, 
and  every  word — this  most  important  of  all — was  UteraUy 
and  actually  inspired,  written  by  the  finger  of  God  Himself. 
It  was  the  Bible  that  again  and  again  intervened  to  stir  up, 
terrify,  or  comfort  Bunyan  in  his  time  of  tribulation.  He 
had  one  friend,  good  Mr.  Gifford,  the  minister  of  Bedford, 
who  helped  him  as  Hopeful  or  Faithful  helped  Christian, 
along  the  way  of  life,  and  his  portrait  is  painted  for  us  in 
the  Interpreter's  House  in  the  picture  of  "  a  very  grave 
person  "  with  "  eyes  lifted  up  to  heaven,  the  law  of  truth 
written  upon  his  Hps  ",  which  "  stood  as  if  it  pleaded  with 
men  ".  But  he  is  only  authorized  to  be  a  guide  of  souls 
because  "  the  best  of  books  is  in  his  hand  ".  One  of  Bun- 
yan's clearest  achievements  was  to  bring  the  Bible  into 
homely  and  graphic  play  with  all  the  circmnstances — hopes, 
fears,  and  joys  of  everyday  hfe.  He  simply  wove  it  into  the 
texture  of  Enghsh  thought  and  imagination. 

John  Bunyan  was  born  in  1628,  the  son  of  a  traveUing 
tinker  at  Elstow,  a  mile  from  Bedford.  His  cottage,  which 
still  stands  by  the  roadside,  is  a  poor  little  hovel,  but  the 
poverty  of  the  parents  did  not  prevent  their  boy  from  having 
a  good  education  at  the  Bedford  Free  Grammar  School. 
During  his  boyhood  he  frequently  rambled  about  with  his 
father  over  the  countryside,  and  many  wayside  sights  and 
prospects  printed  themselves  on  his  mind,  to  be  afterwards 
reproduced  in  his  great  allegory.  The  sloughs  of  the  miry 
tracks,  the  steep  hill,  the  vaUey  meadows,  the  dark  cor- 
ners where  footpads  might  lurk,  the  fairs  hke  that  of  Bed- 
ford itself,  the  pleasant  country  houses,  even,  maybe,  at 


THE   "GRACE  ABOUNDING"  217 

that  time,  a  wayside  Cross  or  two,  all  these  he  took  notice 
of ;  it  is  a  fascinating  speculation  whether,  with  his  father, 
he  may  not  have  visited  Little  Gidding,  and  from  his  memo- 
ries of  the  household  and  its  ways,  have  sketched  the  House 
Beautiful.*  Bunyan  enUsted  for  a  soldier  in  early  manhood 
and  it  is  odd  that  we  do  not  know  on  which  side  in  the  Civil 
War  he  fought.  But  the  soldier  characters  of  Christian 
and  of  Greatheart,  as  well  as  the  heroes  in  Emmanuel's 
army  in  the  "  Holy  War  ",  may,  more  Ukely  than  not,  have 
been  sketched  from  the  Captains  and  Corporals  of  Crom- 
well's Ironsides.  It  was  after  his  return  from  the  wars 
and  his  setthng  down  to  a  married  hfe  with  a  wife  who 
brought  him  for  all  dowry  two  pious  books — the  "  Plain 
Man's  Pathway  to  Heaven  "  and  the  "  Practice  of  Piety  " 
— that  Bunyan's  initial  struggles  began,  the  struggles  that 
we  can  trace  in  the  "  Grace  Abounding  ". 

It  was  a  critical  time  for  this  great  soul,  with  its  keen 
but  as  yet  undisciphned  imagination.  Professor  Dowden 
reminds  us  how  St.  Teresa  could  say,  "  With  the  aid  of 
discipHne  and  Divine  grace,  twelve  months  hence  I  shall 
be  able  to  do  things  that  are  now  impossible  ",  and  how 
this  quiet  certitude  was  a  thing  unknown  in  Bunyan's  early 
experience.  The  contrast  is  indeed  violent ;  "if  the  most 
striking  characteristic  of  '  Grace  Abounding  '  is  its  vivid 
realization  of  the  unseen,  hardly  less  impressive  is  the  sense 
it  leaves  with  us  of  the  difficulty  and  uncertainty  of  the 

*  For  Gidding  was  at  no  great  distance,  and  the  coincidences  of 
account  are  at  least  striking  enough  to  save  the  idea  from  mere 
fancifulness.  Thus  the  maidens  of  the  House  Beautiful  with  their 
names  remind  one  of  the  names  of  Virtues  assumed  by  the  Ferrar 
ladies  ;  the  study  in  the  House  Beautiful,  of  the  Concordance  Room 
at  Gidding  ;  while  in  the  Second  Part  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  " 
there  is  the  catechizing  of  the  cliildren,  the  playing  of  the  "  vir- 
ginals ",  the  cure  of  Matthew's  illness,  to  recall  the  catechizing  of 
the  "  Psalm-children  ",  the  constant  use  of  the  organs,  and  the  work 
of  the  dispensary  carried  on  at  Gidding. 


2i8      PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

writer's  progress  ".^  Here  we  see  very  impressively  the 
lack  to  Bunyan  of  some  great  instructional  system  such 
as  was  behind  Saint  Teresa.  She  was  taught  what  seasons 
of  aridity  meant,  and  how  to  persevere  through  them  ; 
what  was  real  temptation  and  what  more  nearly  approached 
morbid  hallucination.  Bunyan  was  alone,  or  nearly  alone  : 
no  such  help  was  his.  The  promptings  of  his  troubled 
conscience  and  the  whispers  of  inward  temptation  became 
to  him,  in  some  moods,  like  actual  sounds  and  voices,  and 
were  taken  by  him  as  such.  One  Sunday,  in  the  middle 
of  a  game  of  "  cat  ",  such  a  voice  darted  into  his  soul : 
"  Wilt  thou  leave  thy  sins  and  go  to  heaven  or  have  thy 
sins  and  go  to  hell  ?  "  A  little  after,  while  ringing  the 
bells  in  Elstow  tower,  there  came  the  thought,  "  What  if 
the  bells  should  fall  upon  thee  ?  "  and  then,  "  What  if 
the  steeple  should  fall  ?  "  He  dared  not  stay,  nor  ring 
among  the  ringers  any  more,  though  he  would  go  and  lean 
against  the  door-post,  and  hsten  longingly  to  the  chimes. 
Sometimes  the  words  would  sound  behind  him  as  he  walked, 
"  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  thee  ",  and  he  would  turn 
his  head  to  see  the  speaker.  He  compared  his  soul  to  a 
child  smuggled  away  by  a  gypsy  under  her  apron.  "  Kick 
sometimes  I  did,  and  also  shriek  and  cry,  and  yet  I  was  as 
bound  in  my  temptation  as  the  child  in  the  apron  ".  He 
felt  himself  to  have  sinned  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  to 
be  impelled  at  other  times  towards  that  unknown  sin.  At 
times  the  Tempter  would  taunt  him  by  pointing  to  a  bush 
or  a  tree,  and  whisper,  "  Pray  to  these  ".  Then  arose  the 
inner  urging,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  to  "  seU  Christ  ".  We 
do  not  know  precisely  what  meaning  he  attached  to  this 
temptation,  but  "  Sell  Him,  sell  Him,  sell  Him  ",  used  to 
echo  through  his  heart,  and  to  this  he  would  respond,  "  I 
will  not,  I  will  not,  for  ten  thousands  of  worlds  ".     Truly 

^  Dowden  :    Puritan  and  Anglican,  pp.  241-2. 


BUNYAN'S  SPIRITUAL  STRUGGLES         219 

his   burden — the   burden   of   Christian — was   very   heavy  ; 
truly  he,  if  any  one,  was  plunged  into  the  Slough  of  Des- 
pond, "  whither  the  scum  and  filth  that  attend  conviction 
of  sin  doth  continually  run  ",  and  no  good  friend  Help  was 
able  to  assist  him  out.     What  are  we  to  think  of  all  this  ? 
So  far  as  we  can  gather,  his  worst  offences  were  swearing, 
and  playing  games  on  Sunday.     But  that  there  was  a  real 
and  terrific  struggle  in  his  soul  is  a  fact  too  certain  to  be 
put  aside  ;   it  was  exceptional  in  depth  and  fierceness,  and 
seemingly  disproportionate  to  its   occasion,   but  ought  it 
to  be  slighted  for  the  latter  reason  ?     Two  of  Bunyan's 
biographers  have  sought  to  do  so  ;    to  persuade  us  that 
Bunyan's  burden  was  not  so  very  big  after  all,  and  that 
really  a  good  deal  of  needless  fuss  was  made  over  it.     But 
it  is  possible  that  Macaulay  and  Froude  were  not  the  best 
or  most  sjnnpathetic  judges  of  a  condition  such  as  Bunyan's. 
If  Bunyan's  mind  was  ever  in  danger  of  losing  its  balance, 
it  was  the  extremity  of  his  inner  anguish — a  real  anguish — 
that  caused  his  trouble  ;    for  we  may  very  well  recall  two 
facts  about  him.     It  was  a  mind  singularly  strong,  shrewd, 
and  humorous  that  was  visited  with  this  awful  storm  of 
spiritual  anxiety.     No  touch  of  exaggeration  or  insanity 
ever  marred  Bunyan's  after-life  of  steady  usefulness.     Then, 
surely,  what  cured  him  was  an  actual  conversion,  a  spiritual 
healing — not  a  dose  of  "  practical  common  sense  ",  or  a 
return   to   his    former    normality.     No    Worldly  Wiseman 
could  have  explained  his  state,  or  helped  him,  nor  could 
Mr.   Civility  have   done   him   the   slightest   good.     Mount 
Sinai,  with  its  flashes  and  thunderings,  was  too  close.     His 
dehverance  from  temptations  and  trials,  which,  faint  and 
spectral  to  a  Macaulay,  were  to  Bunyan  more  actual  and 
painful  than  the  pangs  of  a  mortal  disease,  took  place  thus. 
The  first  ray  of  hope  dawned  on  him  from  hearing  two  or 
three  poor  women  at  Bedford,  sitting  in  the  sun,  discourse 
to  one  another  of  the  new  birth  and  the  things  of  God. 


330       PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

Bunyan's  own  heart  began  to  shake,  he  tells  us,  and  now 
the  very  Bible  whose  denunciations  and  severity  had  in- 
creased for  a  time  his  trouble,  shone  out  to  his  soul  in 
utterances  that  gave  him  accesses  of  joy  and  peace.  From 
cover  to  cover  it  was  to  him  the  authentic  Voice  of  God, 
so  that  when  a  verse  like,  "  Did  ever  any  trust  in  God  and 
was  confounded?  "  met  him,  he  was  comforted  and  en- 
couraged to  hope.  Then  a  text  from  a  sermon  he  heard 
from  the  Song  of  Solomon,  "  thou  art  fair,  thou  art  my 
love  ",  sang  itselt  in  his  heart,  till  "  I  thought  I  could  have 
spoken  of  His  love  and  of  His  mercy  to  the  very  crows 
that  sat  upon  the  ploughed  lands  before  me ".  There 
came  into  his  hands  an  old  ragged  copy  of  Luther's  "  Epis- 
tle to  the  Galatians ",  and  this,  he  records,  "is  fit  for  a 
wounded  conscience  ".  Then,  finally,  to  quote  his  own 
words,  "  suddenly  this  sentence  fell  upon  my  soul,  '  Thy 
righteousness  is  in  heaven  ",  and  methought  withal  I  saw 
with  the  eyes  of  my  soul  Jesus  Christ  at  God's  right  hand. 
There,  I  say,  was  my  righteousness  ;  so  that  wherever  I 
was,  or  whatever  I  was  a-doing,  God  could  not  say  of  me, 
*  He  wants  my  righteousness  ',  for  that  was  just  before 
Him ".  Was  not  this,  after  all,  Bunyan's  experience  of 
the  deliverance  from  self  which  is  the  secret  of  all  spiritual 
and  eternal  hfe,  and  was  it  very  different  from  Augustine 
sitting  in  his  garden,  listening  to  the  "  ToUe,  lege  ",  and 
opening  his  New  Testament  at  the  words,  "  Put  ye  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  "  ? 

The  man  who  passed  through  this  soul-shaking  experi- 
ence was  one  whose  faith  was  henceforth  firm  as  a  rock  ; 
and  we  shall  have  much  mistaken  Bunyan  if  we  put  him 
down  as  a  mere  enthusiast.  As  soon  as  his  inward  crisis 
was  over  and  peace  had  come  to  him,  all  the  strong,  sensi- 
ble gifts  of  his  nature,  as  well  as  those  exquisite  ones  of 
imagination  and  poetry,  came  into  full  and  beneficent 
employment.     The  face  of  his  portraits  is  that  of  the  sturdy 


BUNYAN   AS  MYSTIC  221 

Englishman  of  the  Midlands,  of  a  person  who  knows  and 
observes  the  world  with  kindly  and  very  definite  insight. 
He  has  humour  to  help  him  as  well.  Moreover,  as  his  hfe 
proved,  he  kept  always  true  to  the  Ught  of  conscience.  His 
visions  and  voices,  even  at  their  keenest  pitch,  were  always 
referred  to  the  judgement  of  conscience  and  Scripture.  He 
was  never  in  danger,  as  were  some  of  his  contemporaries, 
of  trifling  with  the  moral  law. 

His  importance,  as  a  mystic,  is  revealed  by  the  "  Grace 
Abounding  ",  just  as  his  marvellous  insight  into  human 
nature  and  his  immortal  poetry  of  soul  have  their  expres- 
sion in  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  ".  But  allegory,  however 
perfect,  has  no  essential  connexion  with  Mysticism,  and 
we  must  deny  ourselves,  in  consequence,  any  exploration 
of  the  treasures  of  the  "  Dream  ".  The  experience  of  the 
"  Grace  Abounding  "  has  been  noticed  in  some  detail  be- 
cause it  was  and  is  representative  of  a  certain  troubled 
and  critical  way  by  which  souls  are  led  to  the  freedom  of 
the  City  of  God.  Not  so  many  perhaps,  as  the  older-fash- 
ioned EvangeUcals  believed,  who  took  it  almost  as  a  stan- 
dard process  of  the  inner  dehverance.  But  it  is  typical, 
nevertheless,  of  a  vast  and  valid  experience,  that  of  Con- 
version, which  is,  in  its  measure,  true  in  all  ages  of  the 
Church. 

We  can  now  turn,  by  way  of  contrast,  to  another  experi- 
ence and  another  man,  products  also  in  chief  of  the  rich 
soil  and  keen  religious  air  of  the  Commonwealth  period. 

"  An  institution ",  says  Emerson,  "  is  the  lengthened 
shadow  of  a  man,  as  Quakerism  of  George  Fox  ".  And 
as  the  founder  of  Quakerism,  Fox's  name  has  come  down 
in  history.  Yet  anything  further  from  his  thoughts  and 
desires  than  to  start  a  new  sect  could  not  possibly  be  named. 
It  was  the  bearer  of  a  world-wide  message  that  he  believed 
himself  to  be,  the  re-discoverer  of  a  forgotten  but  essential 
realm  of  Christian  thought  and  experience ;  and  to  a  certain 


222      PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

extent  he  was  right.  The  causes  for  which  Quakerism 
fought  through  very  dark  times — Hberty,  equahty  of  oppor- 
tunity, education,  toleration — have  become  watchwords, 
almost  platitudes,  of  the  whole  Christian  world.  It  is  the 
glory  of  the  Society  of  Friends  that  its  influence  has  been 
at  work  behind  nearly  all' the  great  social  reforms  of  the 
last  hundred  years.  On  behalf  of  Prison  Reform  and  the 
Abolition  of  Slavery  the  Friends  were  foremost,  in  the 
cause  of  Peace  and  of  healing  the  effects  of  War  they  have 
been  equally  and  constantly  zealous,  and  in  our  own  day 
their  efforts  in  the  care  and  education  of  working  men  and 
women  and  in  such  movements  as  that  of  the  Adult  Schools 
are  well  known.  These  things  are  scarcely  a  coincidence, 
and  they  are  indeed  high  praise.  They  give  a  strongly 
Catholic  character  to  a  Society  which  outwardly  discards 
Catholic  signs  and  symbols  ;  they  stamp  as  one  of  the  most 
beneficent  of  social  forces  a  conviction  and  a  creed  that 
lay  the  strongest  possible  stress  on  the  guidance  of  the  inner 
individual  light.  Mysticism,  not  for  the  first  time,  proves 
itself  a  direct  agent  for  the  most  practical  issues  of  life. 
''  In  George  Fox  we  have  the  mystic  who  is  seer  and  pro- 
phet. Again  and  again,  in  veritable  powers  as  well  as  in 
resemblance  of  methods,  he  reminds  us  of  some  of  the  old 
Jewish  prophets.  He  wandered  about  as  they  did  ;  he 
had  his  visions  and  revelations  as  they  had ;  he  was  im- 
pelled, as  the}^  were  impelled,  to  interrupt  the  complacent 
beliefs  and  worship  of  his  age,  and  to  suffer,  as  they  suffered, 
the  penalties  of  captivity  and  outlawry.  And,  like  them, 
he  left  a  deep  impression  for  righteousness,  and  he  awoke 
again  in  the  minds  of  men  belief  in  "  the  living  God  ",  the 
indwelling  Christ,  the  real  kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

In  many  ways  Fox  sought,  unconsciously  to  himself,  to 
recover  and  restate  old  Catholic  truths.  For  his  revolt, 
the  revolt  that  sometimes  betrayed  him  into  harsh  and  very 
Old  Testament   language   concerning  his   opponents,   was 


GEORGE   FOX  223 

not  a  revolt  against  the  English  Church.  It  was  not  by 
the  spirit  of  Andrewes  and  Laud  that  he  was  provoked. 
His  soul  was  incensed  by  Presbyterian  hardness  and  formal- 
ism rather  than  by  high  sacramental  doctrine,  by  Calvin's 
"  Institutes  "  rather  than  by  Hooker's  "  Ecclesiastical 
Polity  ".  He  raged  against  the  immense  and  windy  ser- 
mons of  the  day,  against  the  sermon-like  prayers,  against 
the  Calvinistic  tenet  that  a  large  portion  of  mankind  was 
created  for  endless  misery  ;  he  waxed  hot  against  the  super- 
stitious reverence  for  every  letter  of  Holy  Writ,  even  in  i^s 
English  translation,  and  against  the  determination  to  keep 
the  Lord's  Day  as  if  it  was  the  Jewish  Sabbath  unrevised 
by  Christ.  In  short,  he  stood  for  the  vital  breath  of  the 
Word  of  God,  and  for  the  old  Christian  liberty  of  mind  and 
heart,  which  had  been  nearly  forgotten  in  that  era  of  con- 
iident  theological  systems.  "  The  Light  that  lighteth 
every  man"  and  is  "the  Life  of  men",  this  was  Fox's 
principle  and  watchword. 

His  life,  from  his  birth  in  the  last  year  of  James  I,  till 
his  death  just  after  the  dawn  of  that  Toleration  in  1688 
for  which  he  had  fought  his  good  fight,  was  one  long  record 
of  struggle  and  of  suffering,  first  inward,  then  outward.  In 
Fenny  Drayton  Church  as  a  child,  his  eyes  must  often  have 
rested  on  the  beautiful  motto  of  the  Purefoy  family,  "  Pure 
foy  ma  joye  ",  and  it  may  perhaps  have  entered  into  the 
inmost  woof  of  his  thoughts.^  He  had  a  high  character,  as 
a  boy,  for  truth  :  "if  George  says,  '  Verily  ',  there  is  no 
altering  him  ",  and  "  when  boys  and  rude  people  would 
laugh  at  me,  I  let  them  alone,  and  went  my  way  ".  So 
his  Journal  tells  us  ;  and  this,  through  life,  was  his  imper- 
turbable habit.  A  word  must  be  said  about  the  "  Jour- 
nal ",  from  which  most  of  the  material  for  lives  of  George 


1  At  least,  so  Professor  Hodgkin  in  his  excellent  memoir,  George 
Fox,  very  happily  conjectures,  p.  11. 


224      PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

Fox  is  taken.  It  is  a  curious  and  exact  revelation  of  a  soul, 
often  self-conscious,  always  set  without  reservation  on  the 
one  path  it  had  chosen,  but  revealing,  as  few  personal  docu- 
ments have  done,  the  heights  and  depths  of  the  spirit  of 
man.  That  striking  phrase  of  Cromwell's,  "  The  dark 
lantern  of  the  spirit ",  would  be  no  inapt  motto  for  the 
"  Journal ".  In  it  we  learn  of  his  first  strivings  after  truth, 
and  the  results,  sometimes  quaint  indeed,  of  his  visits  to 
neighbouring  "  priests  "  for  counsel  and  help.  One  of  such 
advisers  used  what  Fox  had  said  to  him  for  his  next  Sun- 
day's sermon ;  another  was  angry  because  his  questioner 
trod  by  mistake  on  his  flower-beds  ;  a  third  told  him  to 
smoke  and  sing  psalms  ;  a  fourth  thought  he  needed  phy- 
sic ;  yet  another  gossipped  of  him  among  his  servants  and 
neighbours.  All  through  we  try  to  find  the  nature  of  Fox's 
inner  trouble.  Of  what  burden  was  he  seeking  to  be  rid  ? 
We  cannot  help  comparing  his  beginnings  with  Bunyan's. 
Both  became  masters  of  the  spiritual  life  ;  and  both  took 
a  steadfast  course  through  Vanity  Fair ;  and  yet  how 
different  were  their  initial  trials.  There  is  no  load  of  un- 
forgiven  sin  with  Fox,  no  agony  of  self-loathing.  Fox's 
anxiety  was  rather  about  the  sin  of  the  world,  and  an  in- 
ward struggle  to  get  at  a  clearer  notion  of  God's  will  and 
the  meaning  of  the  Christian  Faith.  When  he  was  twenty- 
two,  his  troubles  began  to  grow  lighter,  and  he  records  what 
he  calls  "  openings  ",  such  as  that  "  being  bred  at  Oxford 
or  Cambridge  was  not  enough  to  quahfy  men  to  be  minis- 
ters of  Christ  ",  and  that  "  God  .  .  .  did  not  dwell  in 
temples  made  with  hands  ".  Each  of  these  "  openings  " 
sounds  to  us  a  commonplace  ;  neither  was  so  in  Fox's  day, 
and  there  is  in  them  an  interesting  intimation  of  the  coming 
tenets  of  the  community  of  Friends.  At  last  there  came 
the  great  turning-point  of  his  life.  He  has  tried  all  men, 
and  found  comfort  from  none  :  "  when  all  my  hopes  in 
them  and  in  all  men  were  gone,  so  that  I  had  nothing  out- 


FOX'S  MINISTRY  225 

wardly  to  help  me,  nor  could  I  tell  what  to  do  ;  then,  oh  ! 
then  I  heard  a  voice  which  said,  '  There  is  One,  even  Christ 
Jesus,  that  can  speak  to  thy  condition ',  and  when  I  heard 
it,  my  heart  did  leap  for  joy.  (He)  opened  the  door  of  Light 
and  Life  to  me  ".  It  is  curious  and  significant  that  this 
crisis  and  "  locution "  should  have  been  almost  imme- 
diately followed  by  an  "  opening "  that  all  Christians, 
Protestant  and  Papist  alike,  were  believers,  and,  if  so,  born 
of  God,  and  passed  from  death  unto  life.  This  was  an  en- 
lightenment so  much  before  its  times  that  it  brought  him 
and  his  followers  often  into  the  strange  suspicion  that  they 
were  Roman  Cathohcs  in  disguise  ;  and,  years  after,  William 
Penn  found  it  quite  possible  to  be  on  good  terms  with  James 
II,  and  was  indeed  a  favourite  at  his  court.  All  these  early 
struggles  of  Fox  resulted  in  a  wonderful  thought  of  his 
Journal :  "I  saw  the  infinite  Love  of  God.  I  saw  also, 
that  there  was  an  ocean  of  darkness  and  death ;  but  an 
infinite  ocean  of  hght  and  love,  which  flowed  over  the  ocean 
of  darkness  ". 

On^he  external  circumstances  of  Fox's  ministry  up  and 
down  the  country,  on  his  frequent  sufferings  and  imprison- 
ments and  those  of  his  followers — a  terrible  page  in  the 
annals  of  reHgious  persecution — ^we  need  not  dwell.  Bad 
under  the  Commonwealth,  those  sufferings  were  intensified 
tenfold  in  the  period  of  the  later  Stuarts.  Nor  need  we 
tell  again  the  charming  romance  of  Swarthmoor  Hall,  his 
courtship  and  marriage  of  Margaret  Fell,  which  Ungers  Uke 
a  ray  of  sunHght  over  the  "  mihtant  Quaker's  "  stormy 
life.  Some  details  of  the  man's  own  character  and  person 
are,  however,  interesting,  as  shewing  that  he  possessed  in 
no  common  degree  gifts  of  the  psychic  order  to  which 
reference  has  already  been  made,  as  accompanying  often 
the  mystical  sense.  We  come  often  upon  records  of  a 
"  power  "  being  felt  while  he  was  by,  of  hostile  crowds 
being  tamed,  of  judges  owning  to  a  feeling  of  awe  and  be- 

M.C.  Q 


226       PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

coming  suddenly  courteous  and  even  deferential  to  their 
strange  prisoner.  He  would  do  the  bravest  and  apparently 
most  foolhardy  things  ;  once,  for  instance,  he  turns  into 
the  roaring  bar  of  a  pubhc-house  and  exhorts  the  barful 
of  tipphng  squires  and  stable-men,  leaving  them  silenced 
and  in  a  kind  of  fear  :  in  his  prisons  he  would  work  upon 
the  hearts  of  his  jailers  and  fellow-prisoners  ;  once  the 
sheriff  who  arrested  him  was  so  impressed  that  the  next 
day  he  was  fain  to  go  out  into  the  streets  and  start  preach- 
ing himself;  in  ^.another  case  the  jailer,  like  him  of  Phihppi, 
and  all  his  house,  were  converted.  Of  course,  he  was  often 
terribly  ill-treated  and  knocked  about,  yet  in  the  midst 
of  one  of  these  riots,  at  Lancaster,  as  he  was  being  led, 
handcuffed,  through  the  midst  of  a  raging  mob — "  the 
spirits  of  the  people  being  mightily  up  " — he  gazed  ear- 
nestly upon  them,  and  a  great  shout  arose,  "  Look  at  his 
eyes  !  look  at  his  eyes  !  "  These  are  strong  hints  of  some- 
thing magnetic  and  compelhng  in  the  man's  glance  and 
presence,  stronger  than  his  personal  grace  and  strength — 
for  he  had  both — would  account  for.  Perhaps  the  greatest 
proof  we  have  of  this  is  in  the  influence  he  exerted  over  the 
tremendous  personahty  of  Cromwell  on  the  one  or  two 
occasions  when  they  met.  At  their  first  interview  Crom- 
well left  him  wdth  tears  in  his  eyes  ;  and  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  it  was  Fox  who,  a  few  days  before  the  Protector's 
end,  met  him  riding  into  Hampton  Court  at  the  head  of 
his  guards,  and  felt  "  a  waft  of  death  go  forth  against  him  ". 
A  man  \vith  the  faculty  of  such  presentiments  would  be 
capable  of  evoking  awe. 

But  now,  what  were  Fox's  doctrines,  that  gave  him  no 
rest  tiU  they  were  proclaimed,  and  were  his  legacy  to  the 
Society  ^  he  formed  ? 

^  The  Society  of  Friends  gained  the  more  familiar,  and  not  now 
misUked,  name  of  "  Quakers  "  from  Mr.  Justice  Bennett  of  Derby, 


FOX'S  DOCTRINES  227 

First,  the  Doctrine  of  the  Inner  Light.  Christ  not  only 
died  for  all,  but,  according  to  Fox,  "  enlightened  all  men 
and  women  with  His  divine  and  saving  light  ",  and  "  none 
could  be  a  true  believer  but  who  also  beheved  in  it  ".  But 
particular  stress  must  be  laid  on  his  claim  to  insight  into 
truth  by  Christ's  "  immediate  spirit  and  power "  which 
also  gave  him  revelations  as  to  special  duties  and  missions, 
intimations  always  implicitly  obeyed.  Dr.  Hodgkin  re- 
marks that  "  though  the  '  Inward  Light  '  is  the  main  article 
of  Fox's  preachings,  many  other  things,  the  disuse  of  sacra- 
ments, the  abandonment  of  a  liturgy,  silent  worship,  un- 
paid ministry,  are  all  in  his  mind  necessary  consequences 
of  that  doctrine  ".^ 

The  second  crucial  part  of  Fox's  teaching  was  his  insis- 
tence on  personal  holiness,  as  against  the  Calvinism  of  the 
day  which  always  had  a  tendency  to  slide  into  Antinomian- 
ism,  and  also  against  the  Arminian  school  which,  although 
it  produced  saintly  men,  yet  exacted  little  by  way  of  neces- 
sity. It  is  easy  to  see  how  these  two  great  doctrines  of 
the  Inner  Light  and  Christian  holiness,  so  congenial  to  the 
spirit  of  Mysticism,  if  exaggerated  as — not  Fox  himself, 
but — some  of  the  first  Quakers  exaggerated  them,  might 
lead  to  the  errors  of  a  belief  in  personal  Inspiration  and  of 
Perfectionism.  It  was  not,  however,  for  supposed  errors 
such  as  these  that  the  Society  of  Friends  suffered  its  first 
and  fiercest  trials.  The  immediate  causes  of  conflict  with 
the  authorities  were  their  refusal  of  military  service,  which 
brought  them  into  suspicion  of  disloyalty  to  whatever 
regime  was  in  power,  their  refusal  to  take  the  oath  in  courts 

who  tried  some  of  its  members,  and  affixed  this  title  to  them  "  be- 
cause they  bade  him  tremble  at  the  word  of  the  Lord  ". 

^  Hodgkin,  George  Fox,  p.  30.  It  may  be  remarked,  however, 
that  silent  worship  was  in  part  the  outcome  of  an  innocent  attempt, 
during  the  later  Caroline  persecution,  to  evade  the  penalties  of  the 
Conventicle  Act  attached  to  preaching  and  public  prayer. 


228    PURITAN  MYSTICS— BUNY AN  AND  FOX 

of  law,  in  an  age  when,  witness  the  Test  Act,  the  oath  was 
accounted  of  extraordinary  importance,  and  the  refusal 
of  the  ordinary  deference  of  the  doffing  of  the  hat.  But 
the  great  Quaker  principles  remained  undimmed  when 
the  clouds  of  misunderstanding  engendered  partly  by  their 
undue  stress  on  lesser  external  points  and  partly  by  the 
acrimonious  intolerance  of  the  times  had  passed  away ; 
and  these  principles  constituted  a  vital  reinforcement  to 

he  hght  of  religion,  sometimes  low-burning  enough  in  the 
England  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. ' 

Before  closing  this  chapter,  it  is  necessary  to  add  one  or 
two  words  on  a  few  other  exponents  of  the  vast  mystical 
movement  which  swayed  men's  minds  in  the  mid-seven- 
teenth century,  and  produced  in  every  body  and  sect  those 
"  Seekers  "  whom  Cromwell  once  so  highly  praised,  and 
who  in  some  ways  were  analogous  in  principle,  though 
not  in  point  of  organization,  to  the  "  Friends  of  God  "  of  an 
earher  date.*  Gerrard  Winstanley,  who  took  so  large  a 
share  in  the  strange  "  Digger  "  movement  of  the  Common- 
wealth period,  was  one  of  these.  His  central  idea,  like 
Fox's,  was  that  of  the  Divine  Light  in  the  soul ;  Christ  is 
that  Light  and  Christ's  hfe  in  the  heart  is  the  true  Resur- 
rection ;  he  was  a  Quietist  in  his  recommendation  that 
men  "  wait  with  a  quiet  silence  upon  the  Lord  till  He  break 
forth  within  their  hearts  ",  but  he  was  no  Quietist  in  the 
sense  that  he  in  any  way  discounted  activity.  "  Action  ", 
he  says,  "  is  the  life  of  all,  and  if  thou  dost  no  act  thou  dost 

nothing  ". » 


^  "  There  were  almost  certainly  Seekers  among  all  the  religious 
societies  of  the  time  ".  Rufus  Jones,  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion, 
p.  452,  where  also  Penn's  words  are  quoted  :  "as  doves  without 
their  mates  ;  seeking  their  beloved,  but  could  not  find  Him  (as 
their  souls  desired  to  know  Him)  whom  their  souls  loved  above 
their  chiefest  joy  "  {Preface  to  Fox's  Journal). 

2  Quoted  from  L.  H.  Berens,  The  Digger  Movement,  pp.  65  and 


SALTMARSH   AND  DELL  229 

Another  thinker  of  some  note  was  John  Saltmarsh,  who 
became,  while  rector  of  Brasted  in  Kent,  a  Parhamentary 
Army  Chaplain,  His  chief  book,  "Sparkles  of  Glory", 
evinces  that  preoccupation  with  the  idea  of  God  as  Light 
which  was  perhaps  the  special  contribution  to  religious 
thought  of  his  age.  Though  he  knows  that  "  the  candle 
of  the  Lord  cannot  shine  anywhere  with  more  snuff  than 
in "  him,  yet  "  the  Lord  hath  hghted  it  ".  His  main 
teaching  is  the  progressive  revelation  of  God  to  man :  first 
by  external  law,  ceremony  and  symbol ;  then  by  the  pres- 
ence in  flesh  of  Iramanuel ;  lastly  (it  sounds  like  an  echo 
of  Joachim  of  Floris)  "  by  the  naked  unveiling  of  Himself 
in  Spirit ".  The  way  to  see  the  truth  clearly,  he  teaches, 
is  to  live  in  its  power,  to  have  Christ's  Ufe  in  us  and  so  to 
"  incarnate  Him  over  again ".  This  is  another,  probably 
unconscious,  repetition  of  a  very  old  mystical  doctrine, 

WilHam  Dell,  at  one  time  Master  of  Caius  College,  Cam- 
bridge, and  afterwards  ejected  from  his  Bedfordshire  living 
in  1662,  is  the  last  exponent  of  mystical  thought  of  whom 
we  may  take  account  before  passing  on  to  consider  the 
life  of  the  religious  genius  whose  teaching  more  or  less  lay 
behind  and  influenced  all  the  "  prophets  "  of  the  Inward 
Light  of  this  period,  not  even  excepting  Fox  himself.  Dell's 
career  had  been  a  changeful  one.  He  started  as  a  Church- 
man of  such  pronounced  views  as  to  act  for  some  time  as 
secretary  to  Archbishop  Laud,  About  the  time  of  the 
Archbishop's  execution,  however,  he  is  found  preaching 
in  the  Parliamentary  army,  and  to  his  powers  of  exposition 
Baxter  was  singularly  uncomphmentary.  His  mind  was, 
however,  then  and  for  some  little  time  after,  undergoing  a 
process  of  change,  and  soon  he,  too,  is  found  uttering  the 
message  of  the  indweUing  Christ,  Word,  Light  and  Life. 
There  is  one  great  insistent  note  of  all  true  Mysticism  which 

113.  In  this  interesting  account  of  Winstanley  he  is  credited  with 
supplying  a  good  deal  of  the  motive  force  behind  the  founders  of 
Quakerism. 


230      PURITAN  MYSTICS-BUNYAN  AND  FOX 

he  sounds  with  power  and  beauty — the  note  of  an  Expe- 
rience. "  Rehgion  ",  to  be  true,  "  changes  the  very  nature 
of  men.  .  .  finds  men  birds  of  prey,  and  makes  them  doves  ; 
it  finds  them  flesh,  it  makes  them  spirit ;  it  finds  them  sin, 
it  makes  them  righteousness  ". 


CHAPTER   XIII 

Behmen   and    Law 

WE  must  now  retrace  our  steps  some  little  way  in 
point  of  time  in  order  to  consider  the  life  and 
teaching  of  the  remarkable  thinker  whose  speculations  were 
at  the  back  of  very  much  of  the  English  seventeenth  century 
Mysticism  described  in  the  last  two  chapters.  The  name 
of  Jacob  Bohme  (or  Behmen,  as  he  is  perhaps  more  com- 
monly called),  the  self-taught  shoemaker  of  Gorlitz,  in 
Lusatia,  is  one  of  extraordinary  interest.  We  may  premise 
by  saying  that  without  doubt  the  Cambridge  Platonists, 
as  well  as  men  like  Winstanley  and  Fox,  were  deeply  in- 
debted to  him.  Behmen's  expressions,  for  instance,  as  to  the 
antithesis  of  Light  and  Darkness  were  reflected  over  and 
over  again  in  their  writings.  But,  besides  this,  Behmen 
summed  up  in  his  system  an  extraordinary  amount  of 
obscure,  but,  as  he  developed  it,  significant  teaching  which 
had  gone  before  him,  and  he  left  a  legacy  of  pregnant 
thought  which  has  never  since  been  fully  exhausted.  His 
life  may  be  very  briefly  told.  He  was  born  in  1575,  and 
as  a  boy  was  sent  out  to  tend  the  cattle  in  the  fields.  Like 
Blake  afterwards,  he  was  a  visionary  from  very  early  years. 
He  had  a  good  practical  schooling,  and  was  then  apprenticed 
to  a  shoemaker,  and  it  was  as  a  humble  shoemaker  and 
glover  that  he  lived  his  life.  In  early  manhood,  he  received 
one  day  a  mysterious  warning  from  a  chance  customer  that 
he  was  destined  to  become  great  in  spiritual  things,  and 

231 


232  BEHMEN  AND  LAW 

also  to  suffer  persecution.  He  married  in  1594  and  had 
four  children,  and  in  all  ways  behaved  as  an  admirable  hus- 
band and  father.  Like  Fox  and  Bunyan,  he  had,  to  begin 
with,  his  period  of  deep  melancholy,  but  his  sorrow  was  of 
the  nature  of  Fox's  rather  than  of  Bunyan's,  and  arose  from 
the  insoluble  mystery  of  life,  and  the  problems  of  sin  and 
misery  he  saw  around  him.  This  period  was  succeeded 
by  three  successive  and,  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  judge, 
authentic  Ecstasies,  possessing  the  true  notes  of  mystical 
experience.  That  is  to  say,  there  was  no  organic  disturb- 
ance, the  experiences  were  transitory,  indescribable,  and 
yet  to  the  utmost  degree  authoritative,  and  resulted  in  a 
conviction  of  the  underlying  One-ness  or  harmony  of  all 
things  in  God.  The  authoritativeness  of  his  visions  induced 
Behmen  to  begin  the  writing  of  his  books,  starting  with  the 
"  Aurora  ",  and  numbering  thirty  in  all.  Of  these,  "  The 
Three  Principles  ",  "  The  Threefold  Life  of  Man  ",  "  Signa- 
tura  Rerum  ",  and  "  Mysterium  Magnimi  "  are  the  most 
famous.  But  they  brought  Behmen  into  life-long  trouble. 
A  nobleman,  Carl  von  Endern,  saw  the  "  Aurora  "  and  had 
some  copies  made  of  it.  Unfortunately,  Richter,  the 
Lutheran  pastor  of  Gorlitz,  a  narrow-minded  bigot,  got 
hold  of  one  of  these,  and  not  only  held  up  Behmen  to  scorn 
from  his  pulpit  but  prevailed  on  the  Town  Council  to  pro- 
hibit him  from  any  work  but  that  of  "  sticking  to  his  last  ". 
Behmen  actually  restrained  his  pen  for  seven  years,  but 
the  inward  pressure  became  too  great,  and  he  then  dared 
all  and  wrote  on  till  the  year  of  his  death,  1624.  He  was 
threatened  with  death  at  the  stake,  and  was  forced  finally 
to  flee  from  Gorlitz  to  Dresden,  whence  he  returned  only  to 
die.  On  the  other  hand,  persecution  produced  its  inevitable 
effect  of  directing  attention  from  far  and  wide  to  his  teach- 
ing. This  attention  was  of  the  most  varied  kind.  There 
were  those,  then  and  afterwards,  who  were  frankly  and  some- 
times boisterously  impatient  with  what  they  read.     Henry 


I 


JACOB   BEHMEN  233 

More,  the  Platonist,  believed  indeed  that  Behmen's  "  mind 
was  devoutly  united  to  the  Head  of  the  Church,  the  Crucified 
Jesus  .  .  .  but  is  to  be  reckoned  in  the  number  of  those 
whose  imaginative  faculty  has  the  pre-eminence  above  the 
rational  ".  But  Bishop  Warburton  roundly  declared,  "  Beh- 
men's works  would  disgrace  Bedlam  at  full  moon  ",  and  the 
saintly  John  Wesley  pronounced  them  "  sublime  nonsense, 
inimitable  bombast,  fustian  not  to  be  paralleled".  In  our 
own  day,  Mr.  Sharpe  concludes  that  "  with  true  Mysticism 
(Behmen)  has  no  affinities  whatever  ".^  'On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  shutting  himself  up  for 
three  months  to  study  Behmen ;  ^  there  is  the  fact  already 
noticed  of  his  great  influence  amongst  men  of  saintly  thought 
in  England ;  there  were  his  two  eminent  disciples.  Saint 
Martin  in  France,  and  our  own  William  Law,  whose  mystic- 
ism was  a  devoted  advocacy  of  Behmen's  chief  principles, 
while  in  more  modern  days  Hegel  praised  him  and  Franz 
Baader  lectured  on  him.  The  number  indeed,  of  those  with 
whom  his  is  a  name  familiar  and  revered  is,  it  may  be  safely 
said,  steadily  increasing. 

Why,  we  may  ask,  this  divergency  of  opinion  ?  Partly 
it  is  due  to  Behmen's  actual  teaching,  and  partly  to  his 
mode  of  expressing  himself.  To  take  the  latter  point  first, 
More  was  right  enoagh  in  what  he  said  of  Behmen's  imagina- 
tion, and,  in  Dr.  Inge's  words,  "  the  scholars  who  gathered 
round  him  supplied  him  with  philosophical  terms,  which  he 
forthwith  either  personified — for  instance,  the  word  '  Idea  ' 
called  forth  the  image  of  a  beautiful  maiden — or  used  in  a 
sense  of  his  own.  The  study  of  Paracelsus  obscured  his 
style  still  more,  filling  his  treatises  with  a  bewildering  mix- 


^  A.  B.  Sharpe,  op.  cit.  p.  170.  He  praises,  however,  Behmen's 
"  meditative  mind  ",  "  constantly  fixed  on  the  idea  of  God  ",  and 
his  "  many  sane  and  devout  reflections  ". 

'  Overton  :    Life  of  William  Law,  p.  188. 


234  BEHMEN  AND  LAW 

ture  of  theosophy  and  chemistry.  The  result  is  certainly 
that  much  of  his  work  is  almost  unreadable  :  the  nuggets 
of  gold  have  to  be  dug  out  of  a  bed  of  rugged  stone  ".^ 

But  the  difficulty  about  Behmen  extends  far  beyond  his 
use  of  words,  beyond  even  the  fact  that  his  imaginative 
force  caused  him  to  move  from  a  purely  subjective  type  of 
Mysticism  to  Symbolism,  and  a  very  difficult  Symbolism, 
too.  The  truth  is  that  the  mystical  student  must  always 
discard  a  good  deal  of  Behmen,  owing  to  the  fact  that  he 
offers  us  by  turns  true  Mysticism  and  its  very  questionable 
by-product,  Theosophy.  Behmen  was  a  religious  genius, 
but  as  life  went  on  he  took  to  himself  masters  whose  guidance 
was  sometimes  beneficent,  and  sometimes  the  reverse. 
Weigel  was  one  of  his  masters,  and  Weigel's  teaching  of  the 
value  of  nature-study  as  part  of  the  self-education  of  the 
soul — "  you  become  that  which  you  have  learned  " — was 
of  the  utmost  importance.  But,  as  we  saw  above,  Para- 
celsus was  another  of  his  guides,  and  while  to  Paracelsus 
he  owed  two  of  the  most  important  of  his  mystical  principles, 
to  him  also  was  due  that  infusion  of  Theosophy  into  Behmen's 
teaching  which  alienated  and  still  alienates  many  of  his 
readers.  2  For  Theosophy  is  the  extension  or  exaggeration 
of  the  intuitions  of  ]\Iysticism  concerning  the  Divine,  and 
their  erection  into  systems  possessing  no  other  validity 
than  those  of  a  powerful  imagination  and  the  perception 
of  real  or  supposed  analogies  between  the  worlds  of  nature 
and  of  grace,  of  the  outward  and  the  inward.  Moreover, 
in  all  theosophies  as  such  there  is  either  discordance  or  a 
tendency  to  disregard  the  magisterium  of  the  Church.  This 
was  seen  markedly,  as  well  as  the  lack  of  the  mystical 

1  Inge,  op.  cit.  p.  278. 

2  Was  it  with  conscious  reference  to  Behmen's  connexion  with 
Paracelsus  that  Wesley  used  the  term  "  bombast "  derived,  of 
course,  from  the  second  name  of  that  really  remarkable  man — 
Bombastes  ? 


BEHMEN'S  THEOSOPHY  235 

authoritativeness,  that  authoritativeness  which  is  identical 
with  the  leap  of  response  in  the  human  soul  to  its  message, 
in  the  case  of  the  early  Gnostics.  In  the  case  of  Behmen 
the  true  mystic  and  the  theosophist  are  blended,  so  blended 
that  his  doctrine  will  always  possess  a  power  and  an  appeal 
which  will  again  be  for  ever  half  spoiled  by  the  acquired 
verbiage  and  the  over-systematizing  with  which  he  drapes 
them. 

Let  us  put  on  one  side,  therefore,  interesting  in  some 
respects  as  they  are,  such  speculations  of  Behmen's  as  his 
Quellgeister  or  Fountain-spirits,  the  seven  forms  of  life  of 
the  Eternal  Nature,  or  Mysterium  Magnum,  a  term  derived 
from  Paracelsus.^  What  is  interesting  about  these  specula- 
tions is  that,  although  theosophy,  they  are  original  theo- 
sophy.  The  term  Mysterium  Magnum  is  borrowed,  but  not 
its  meaning.  Paracelsus  understood  by  it  primeval  Chaos, 
out  of  which  he  supposed  darkness  and  light,  hell  and 
heaven,  somehow  to  have  proceeded  ;  Behmen's  Mysterium 
Magnum  is  rather  the  Divine  Eternal  Nature,  correspondent 
to  His  Will,  His  inward  Being,  His  Wisdom.  Again,  the 
coincidence  between  Behmen's  seven  Quellgeister  and 
Basilides'  seven  intellectual  and  moral  impersonations 
(the  first  rank  of  his  successive  emanations)  and  Saturninus' 
seven  astral  spirits  (lowest  of  his  series  and  bordering  on 
matter)  is  curious,  but  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  coincidence. 
Behmen  could  have  known  little,  if  anything,  of  the  Gnostics, 
and  with  him  there  was  no  gulf,  as  with  them,  to  be 
bridged  between  the  supreme  Spirit  and  Matter.  "  With 
him,  the  thought  becomes  the  act  of  God.  Matter  is  not  a 
foreign,  inert  substance  .  .  .  the  material  universe  exhibits, 
incorporate,     these     very     attributes    which     constitute 

^  See  Vaughan  :  Hours  with  the  Mystics,  bk.  viii.  ch.  8,  for 
a  description  of  these  Qualities,  the  Astringent,  the  Expansive,  the 
Bitter,  the  Quahties  of  Fire,  Love,  Sound,  and  Corporeity,  or  opera- 
tive manifestation. 


236  BEHMEN  AND  LAW 

the  Divine  glory.  Nature  is  not  merely  of,  but  out  of, 
God".i 

The  two  great  principles  of  mystical  thought,  which 
Behmen  emphasized,  and  of  one  of  which  he  may  be  almost 
called  the  prophet,  belong  respectively  to  the  spheres  of 
practical   spiritual   life   and   of   religious   philosophy. 

{a)  From  the  very  first  he  was  convinced  of  the  doctrine 
dear  to  so  many  mystics,  that  man  himself  is  the  microcosm 
of  the  Universe  and  its  processes.  This  doctrine  he  pushed 
to  the  extent  of  claiming  a  sort  of  personal  inspiration  for 
his  teaching,  much  of  which  was  indeed  original,  but  some, 
especially  in  later  life,  tinged,  as  we  have  seen,  by  alien 
and  quite  decipherable  influences.  Thus,  "  I  saw ",  he 
says,  "  the  Being  of  all  Beings,  the  Byss  (Grund)  and  the 
Abyss ;  also,  the  birth  of  the  Holy  Trinity  ;  the  origin 
and  primal  state  of  the  world  and  of  all  creatures.  I  saw 
in  myself  the  three  worlds — The  Divine  angelic  or  para- 
disiacal world  ;  the  dark  world,  as  the  original  of  Nature  ; 
.  .  .  and  this  external  visible  world,  as  a  substance  spoken 
forth  out  of  the  two  spiritual  worlds.  ...  In  my  inward 
man  I  saw  it  well,  .  .  it  opened  itself  within  me,  like  a 
growing  plant  .  .  .  whatsoever  I  could  bring  into  outward- 
ness, that  I  wrote  down  ".^  But  of  inestimable  value  was 
the  consequent  emphasis  on  the  doctrine  that  the  atonement 
of  Christ  is  no  forensic  transaction  outside  us,  but  a  living 
process  within  us.  We  have  met  with  this  doctrine  before 
amongst  the  pre- Reformation  German  mystics  ;  it  was 
nobly  caught  up  by  the  older  Protestant  mystics,'  of  whom 

^  Vaughan,  op.  cii.  bk.  viii.  ch.  8.     Note. 

^  Vaughan  :    op.  cit.,  bk.  vdii.  ch.  6. 

3  Notably  by  Valentine  Weigel.  "  Thou  canst  have  no  help  ", 
he  says,  "  from  outside.  That  must  come  from  the  Christ  wdthin 
thee.  .  .  .  True  faith  is  the  life  of  Christ  in  us  :  it  is  being  baptized 
with  Him,  suffering,  dying,  and  rising  again  with  Him".  See  Inge, 
Studies  of  English  Mystics,  p.   140. 


THE   LAW  OF  ANTITHESIS  237 

Behmen  was  chief.  "  If  this  said  sacrifice  is  to  avail  for 
me  ",  he  writes,  "  it  must  be  wrought  in  me.  The  Father 
must  beget  his  Son  in  my  desire  of  faith,  that  my  faith's 
hunger  may  apprehend  Him  in  His  word  of  promise.  Then 
I  put  Him  on,  in  His  entire  process  of  justification  in  my 
inward  ground  ...  I  am  inwardly  dead,  and  He  is  my 
life  !  "  In  his  "  Supersensual  Life  "  he  counsels  "  the  dis- 
ciple ",  who  holds  colloquy  with  "  the  master  ",  to  turn 
away  all  things  that  "  please  and  entertain  and  feed  "  the 
separated  will,  and  so,  by  way  of  the  Cross,  to  rediscover 
within  the  true  self  "  what  was  before  nature  and  crea- 
ture "  ;  and  much  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Inward  Light,  dear 
to  Winstanley  and  Fox,  comes  into  this  discourse.^ 

(b)  The  other  great  doctrine  of  which  Behmen  was  the 
modern  foster-father  amongst  mystics  is  the  law  of  Anti- 
thesis as  being  at  th'  root  of  all  things.  He  caught  up 
Heraclitus  dictum,  "  Strife  is  the  father  of  everything  ", 
and  echoed  it  in  his,  "  In  Yes  and  No  all  things  do  consist  ". 
On  earth  this  is  evident  enough.  There  could  be  no  know- 
ledge of  pleasure  without  pain,  of  rest  without  fatigue,  of 
heat  without  cold,  of  light  without  darkness.  But  then 
Behmen  believed  that  the  spiritual  world  is  the  counterpart 
of  the  natural,  nay,  that  it  is,  as  Goethe  expressed  it, "  the 
iving  garment  of  God  ".  There  is  no  Qual  (determination, 
quality)  without  Quaal  (suffering).  Is  this  law  of  contrari- 
ness then  discoverable  within  the  Divine  Nature  also  ? 
Behmen  boldly  answered.  Yes.  Attraction  and  Diffusion 
are  felt  everywhere  in  their  ceaseless  play,  even  in  the  hidden 
life  of  the  Godhead.  Hence  the  desire  for  Self-manifestation 
arises  in  the  Abyss  of  the  Pure  Will,  "  in  which  all  things 
lie  unexpressed  ",  and  which  he  identified  as  God  the  Father. 
But  nothing  can  become  manifest  in  the  world  of  existence 

^  The  discourse  in  question  has  been,  with  the  Signatura  Rerum, 
recentl}^  published  in  Messrs.  J.  M.  Dent's  "  Everyman's  Library  ". 
Cf.  Rufus  Jones :     Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  495. 


238  BEHMEN  AND  LAW 

without  contrariness.  Hence  the  Abysmal  Will  divided 
itself,  in  Its  desire  for  self-expression,  and  the  Godhead 
became  Darkness.  But  when  the  Father  begot  within 
Himself  the  Son,  the  Eternal  Light,  the  antithesis  of  the 
Divine  Darkness  arose.  The  bond  of  mutual  life  between 
the  Father  and  the  Son  is  the  Holy  Spirit,  Who  is  thus 
Synthesis,  and  in  Him  the  archetypes  of  creation  take  their 
beginning.  This  tenet  of  Thesis,  Antithesis,  and  Synthesis 
is  again  exemplified  in  Body,  Soul,  and  Spirit  :  and  the  life 
of  God  Himself  is  the  eternal  resolution  of  darkness  into 
light,  wrath  into  love,  discord  into  harmony.  "  Love  sub- 
mits to  the  fire  of  wrath  ",  is  one  of  Behmen's  sayings,  "  that 
it  may  be  a  fire  of  love  ". 

It  is  impossible  to  discuss  Behmen's  teaching  with  regard 
to  the  problem  of  evil  without  passing  the  limits  we  have 
set  ourselves  and  trespassing  from  the  sphere  of  his  true 
mysticism  to  that  of  his  theosophy.^  It  must  be  sufficient 
to  say  that  in  general  his  thought  is  that  evil  directly  arises 
whenever  any  sentient  being  chooses  his  own  self — the 
"  centrum  naturae  " — as  his  spring  of  action  instead  of  the 
God  centre.  This,  said  Behmen,  was  what  Lucifer  deliber- 
ately did.  Thereby  the  first  or  dark  ternary  of  Quellgeister 
— the  reader  is  referred  to  the  note  below — became  operative 
in  him,  as  in  all  such,  unillumined  and  unmitigated  by  the 


*  This  term  had  a  special  meaning  with  Behmen.  For  in  his 
speculations  the  Will  in  the  Godhead  conjoined  with  the  Eternal 
Wisdom  (Theo-Sopliia)  were  Father  and  Mother  of  the  Divine 
creative  powers.  This  Will  and  this  Wisdom  become,  in  Nature, 
Force  and  Space,  which  beget  Motion.  Now  in  Nature  are  found 
the  Seven  Quahties  before  mentioned,  and  the  first  "  ternary  "  of 
these  (corresponding  to  the  "  salt  ",  the  "  sulphur  ",  and  the  "  mer- 
cury "  of  Paracelsus),  is  the  dark  ternary,  just  as  the  last  three 
constitute  the  bright  ternary.  Midway  is  the  Quality  of  Fire,  or 
the  Lightning-flash  of  the  Spirit,  which  for  ever  transforms  the 
dark,  or  inharmonious  quahties,  ending  their  strife,  and  bringing 
light  and  harmony. 


WILLIAM  LAW  239 

mild  Fire  of  the  Word,  the  fourth  QuaHty.  So  he  became 
subject  to  the  wrath  of  God  only,  that  "  wrath  which  has 
existed  from  all  eternity,  though  not  as  wrath,  but  as  fire 
latent  in  a  tree  or  stone,  until  it  is  aroused  ". 

It  is  difficult  to  compress  the  system  of  Behmen  or  to 
offer  it  in  any  worthy  analysis,  in  a  short  space.  Still  harder 
is  it  to  separate  that  in  his  thought  which  is,  and  has  been 
proved  to  be,  of  permanent  worth,  from  the  visions  of  one 
who,  holy  and  humble  man  of  heart  as  he  was,  certainly 
used  self-hypnotization  at  times,  gazing  fixedly,  for  instance, 
at  the  ray  of  light  through  a  key-hole  until  he  became 
unconscious  of  the  external  world.  In  spite  of  such  methods, 
and  of  some — in  the  real  sense  of  the  phrase — "  bombastic  " 
extravagancies,  his  teaching?  gives  him  a  place  in  the  great 
line  of  German  thought  which  culminated  in  Schelling  and 
Hegel,  and  also,  since  he  lays  stress  on  Will  as  the  constitu- 
tive principle  in  the  world,  makes  him  a  forerunner  of 
Schopenhauer.  There  is,  too,  the  doctrine  of  the  zmio 
mystica  which  he  brings,  as  St.  Paul  brought  it,  into  closest 
touch  with  his  Christology  ;  and  his  insistence  on  the  analogy 
between  the  visible  and  invisible  world.  Then,  also,  there 
is  his  great  re-discovery  of  the  law  of  Antithesis.  All  these 
justify  his  claim  to  the  title  of  his  own  time,  "  the  Teutonic 
philosopher ",  and  are  nothing  short  of  marvellous  as 
emanating  from  the  self-taught  Lusatian  shoemaker. 

His  best  selective  interpreter  for  English  minds  is  William 
Law,  the  Non-juror.  Law,  until  lately,  was  chiefly  known 
as  the  author  of  the  "  Serious  Call  to  a  Devout  and  Holy 
Life  ",  but  the  revival  of  interest  of  late  in  Mysticism  and 
the  mystics  have  made  many  aware  that  this  powerful 
little  work  with  its  brilliant  character-sketching,  the  treatise 
"  which  was  the  first  occasion  of  "  Samuel  Johnson's  "  think- 
ing in  earnest  ",  and  called  forth  eulogies  from  such  very 
different  judges  as  John  Wesley  and  Edward  Gibbon,  is 
not  the  sole,  or  even  the  chief  claim  that  Law  makes  on  our 


240  BEHMEN  AND  LAW 

attention  and  admiration.  The  "  Serious  Call  "  was  written 
during  the  period  when  Law  was  tutor  to  Edward  Gibbon, 
father  of  the  historian,  with  whom,  either  at  Cambridge  or 
in  his  house  at  Putney,  a  salon  of  religion  and  letters,  he 
spent  the  years  between  1727  and  1739.  In  1740  he  returned 
to  his  birthplace.  King's  Cliffe,  in  Northamptonshire,  where 
he  lived  with  two  friends,  Mrs.  Hutcheson  and  Miss  Hester 
Gibbon,  who  placed  themselves  under  his  religious  direction, 
till  his  death  in  1761,  at  the  age  of  seventy-five.  His  peace- 
ful and  holy  life,  and  that  of  his  companions,  was  only 
flawed  by  an  absolutely  indiscriminate  charity.  Nine- 
tenths  of  their  joint  income  was  devoted  to  that  end,  and 
all  the  vagrants  of  the  country-side  were  attracted  to  the 
unfortunate  village  of  their  residence. 

It  was  said  that  the  "  Serious  Call "  is  not  Law's  chief 
claim  on  our  attention.  For  it  is  in  no  sense  a  mystical 
work.  It  is  an  expansion,  witty,  and  shrewd,  and  solemn 
by  turns,  and  always  intensely  in  earnest,  of  the  warning 
of  the  Lord,  "  Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon  ".  It 
was  in  another  mood  that  Law  wrote  his  later  treatises, 
"  The  Spirit  of  Love  ",  "  the  Spirit  of  Prayer  ",  "  The  Way 
to  Divine  Knowledge  ".^  In  the  meantime  had  come  the 
great  crisis  of  his  life,  his  discovery  on  a  bookstall  of  some 
writings  of  Behmen.  These  "spoke  to  his  condition", 
and  he  became  thenceforth,  whilst  retaining  his  loyalty  to 
the  system  of  the  English  Prayerbook,  the  eager  disciple 
of  Behmen,  and  his  interpreter  to  the  England  of  his 
day. 

It  was  by  use  of  Behmen's  insistence  on  a  redemption  in 
us  if  it  is  to  be  for  us,  that  Law  "^aw  he  could  counteract 
the  cold  and  formal  Deism  of  his  day,  the  Deism  which 
viewed  God  as  a  vast  Being  distinct  from  His   creation, 

^  For  a  reproduction  of  these  and  other  of  his  writings  somewhat 
abridged,  see  The  Liberal  and  Mystical  Writings  of  William  Law, 
edited  by  William  Scott  Palmer. 


THE   IMMANENCE  OF  GOD  241 

vast  indeed,  yet  a  Being  amongst  beings.  His  steady  teach- 
ing of  the  Immanence  of  God  has  two  sides  to  it. 

{a)  On  one  side  it  concerns  Nature.  "  Everything  in 
temporal  Nature  is  descended  out  of  that  which  is  eternal, 
and  stands  as  a  palpable  visible  outbirth  from  it  "  ;  yes, 
but,  again,  "  in  Eternal  Nature,  or  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
materiality  stands  in  life  and  light ;  it  is  the  Light's  glorious 
Body,  or  that  garment  wherewith  light  is  clothed  ".  And 
yet  again  ;  "  Everything,  by  its  form  and  condition,  speaks 
so  much  of  God  ;  and  God,  in  everything,  speaks  and  mani- 
fests so  much  of  Himself  ".1  Bishop  Warburton  accused 
Law  of  discipleship  to  Spinoza,  but  Law  will  have  none  of 
that  "  gross  confounding  of  God  and  Nature  "  which  he 
held  to  be  Spinozism.  In  other  words,  he  believed  in  God's 
Transcendence,  as  well  as  His  Immanence,  and  fought 
Deism  and  Pantheism  alike. 

(&)  The  other  significant  side  of  Law's  teaching  is  that 
which  concerns  man.  "  He  sees  that  man  ...  is  the 
theatre  of  real  events  .  .  .  and  in  matters  of  religion  only 
those  things  which  happen  in  a  man  happen  for  him.  A 
Christ  that  is  not  in  him  cannot  be  for  him  ".^  It  is  in- 
teresting to  notice  the  process  by  which  Law  arrived  at  this 
conclusion.  "  If  Christ  was  to  raise  a  new  life  like  His  own 
in  every  man,  then  every  man  must  have  had  originally  in 
the  inmost  spirit  of  his  life  a  seed  of  Christ,  or  Christ  as  a 
seed  of  heaven,  lying  there  in  a  state  of  insensibility.  .  .  . 
The  Word  of  God  is  the  hidden  treasure  of  every  human 
soul,  immured  under  flesh  and  blood,  till  as  a  day-star  it 
arises  in  our  hearts  ".  ^  This  is  the  old  doctrine  of  the 
Synteresis  or  Divine  Spark  in  the  soul,  taught  by  Eckhart 
and  the  German  medieval  mystics.     Therefore,  "  a  bare, 

^  An  Appeal  to  all  who  Doubt  [Liberal  and  Mystical  Writings 
of  William  Law),  pp.  51,  52. 

2  lb.  Preface,  p.  5. 

3  Quoted  from  Inge  :    Christian  Mysticism,  pp.  282-3. 

M.C.  R 


242  BEHMEN  AND  LAW 

historical,  and  superficial  faith  cannot  save  the  soul ", 
there  is  needed  "  a  real  strong  hunger  which  lays  hold  on 
Christ,  and  causes  the  arising  of  a  new  birth  or  nature  in 
the  very  essence  of  '  man's  being '.  An  inward  Saviour 
k  .  .  raising  His  own  Divine  birth  in  the  human  soul,  has 
such  a  fitness  in  it  as  must  make  every  sober  man  with  open 
arms  ready  and  willing  to  receive  such  a  salvation  ".^ 
Nevertheless,  such  doctrine  must  have  sounded  strange 
enough  in  the  "  sober  "  ears  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In 
one  point  Law  appears  to  depart  somewhat  from  the  teach- 
ing of  his  beloved  master,  Behmen,  when  he  declares  there 
is  no  "  wrath  ",  or  "  dark  fire  "  in  the  Divine  Being,  but 
only  in  us,  and  that  "  the  precious  Blood  of  His  Son  was 
not  poured  out  to  pacify  Himself,  Who  in  Himself  had  no 
nature  towards  man  but  love,  but  it  was  poured  out  to 
quench  the  wrath  and  fire  of  the  fallen  soul ". 

Behmen  had  more  disciples  than  one,  in  addition  to  an 
indirect  and  diffused  influence  which,  great  even  in  his  own 
day,  has  been  steadily  growing  since.  In  our  own  country 
WnHam  Blake,  in  Germany,  Eckhartshausen,  author  of 
"  The  Cloud  upon  the  Sanctuary  ",  in  France,  the  troubled 
Transcendentalist,  Saint  Martin,  owned  themselves  his  dis- 
ciples. A  few  words  in  especial  must  be  said  about  Blake. 
We  have  long  passed  the  time  when  even  such  tempered 
harshness  of  criticism  as — of  all  people's — Coventry  Pat- 
more's  ^  on  his  art  and  poetry  can  pass  muster.  Blake  is 
a  great  deal  more  to  us  than  a  craftsman  whose  art  it  is — 
to  modify  a  little  Fuseli's  phrase — "  good  to  steal  from  ". 
He  is  an  acknowledged  seer  and  mystic,  born  out  of  due 
time,  and  most  oddly  and  incongruously  out  of  place  at  the 
end  of  the  Georgian  era.  What  was  his  method,  and  what 
was  his  message  ?     These  are  dangerous  questions  to  answer 

1  William  Law  :  The  Grounds  and  Reasons  of  Christian  Regenera- 
tion. 

2  Patmore  :    Principle  in  Art,  etc.,  xv. 


WILLIAM   BLAKE  243 

within  a  few  sentences.  But  if  one  views  a  collection  of 
Blake's  drawings  one  gets  a  certain  clue  at  once.  They 
have,  to  the  first  rapid  glance,  an  appearance  of  straight- 
forward childishness  ;  they  are  naive  to  a  fault  in  their 
attempts — which  are  sometimes,  like  the  poems,  of  exquisite 
beauty,  and  sometimes  confess  to  a  curious  clumsiness — 
to  express  somehow,  anyhow,  what  their  creator  had  in 
mind.  Only  he  had  a  great  deal  in  mind,  and  his  medium 
was  inadequate.  Mostly  we  recognize  that,  nowadays,  and 
we  see  that  Blake's — to  the  world — weird  gift  was  the  gospel 
quality  of  childlikeness.  Childlike  he  remained  through 
life  ;  the  abruptness  and  definiteness  of  vision  and  expres- 
sion of  this  "  God-intoxicated  "  man  were  alike  those  of  a 
child.  Everybody  knows  and  can  smile  over  certain  anec- 
dotes of  the  awkward  or  alarming  manifestations  of  these 
qualities  ;  but  no  one  who  takes  up  Blake's  poems  can  fail 
to  be  arrested  by  the  loveliness  of  some  of  the  "  Songs  of 
Innocence  ",  or  by  such  lines  in  his  more  tangled  poems  as, 

'  O  Forgiveness,  O  Pity  and  Compassion  !     If  I  were  pure  I  should 
never 
Have  known  thee'V 

which,  as  Miss  Underbill  remarks,  is  the  echo  of  the  old 
Catholic  cry,  "  O  felix  culpa  !  ",  or  by  the  lines, 

"  If  God  dieth  not  for  man,  and  giveth  not  Himself 
Eternally  for  Man,  Man  could  not  exist,  for  Man  is  Love 
As  God  is  Love.     Every  kindness  to  another  is  a  little  death 
In  the  Divine  Image.  .  .  ."^ 

Blake's  method  then  is  childlike,  from  that  first  tre- 
mendous vision  of  God,  which  he  saw  as  a  child,  and  told 
with  a  child's  terrible  directness.  His  message  was  partly 
caught  from  Behmen,  and  partly  from  Swedenborg,  whom 
he  also  studied.     It  is  that  of  Analogy  or  Correspondence. 


*  Jerusalem,  Ixi.  47.     See;E.  Underbill :    Mysticism,  p.  128. 
2  Jerusalem,  xgv.  25. 


244  BEHMEN  AND  LAW 

"  Correspondence  is  the  central  idea  of  Swedenborg's  system. 
Everything  visible  has  belonging  to  it  an  appropriate 
spiritual  reality  ".^  Behmen  believed  also  that  this  world 
is  a  parable  of  the  unseen,  and  that  in  certain  moments  of 
intuition  he  could  interpret  the  "  Signatura  Rerum  ".  But 
Swedenborg  is  on  much  more  matter-of-fact  ground.  He 
details  actual  experiences,  journeys,  conversations,  sights 
and  sounds  in  the  world  beyond,  in  a  calm,  methodical 
manner.  We  are  far  indeed  from  a  Mysticism  which  rejected 
all  figures  and  shapes  of  the  Divine  Order  and  Vision.  And 
vhile  there  are  beautiful  and  suggestive  thoughts  in  his 
system, — such  as  his  exaltation  of  the  Divine  Humanity  as 
the  pattern  of  the  universe — his  is  rather  a  commonplace, 
homely  heaven.  But  in  the  Doctrine  of  Correspondence, 
common  to  Behmen  and  Swedenborg,  and  of  which  the 
New  Testament  contains  hints,  there  was  enough  to  inspire 
Blake  and  other  poets  after  him  with  some  of  their  noblest 
thoughts.  Tennyson's  "  Flower  in  the  crannied  wall " 
comes  at  once  of  course  to  mind,  but  Blake  was  before 
him  seeing  "  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand,  and  Eternity  in 
an  hour  ",  or  remarking  sadly,  "  The  tree  which  moves 
some  to  tears  of  joy  is  in  the  Eyes  of  others  only  a  green 
thing  that  stands  in  the  Way  ",  or  finding  in  the  sun  no 
mere  yellow  disc  but  a  sphere  wherein  the  worship  of  the 
threefold  "  Sanctus  "  was  offered  daily  in  the  very  sight 
of  the  unheeding  earth.  And  all  because  his  "  doors  of 
perception  are  cleansed  "  so  that  "  everything  appeared 
as  it  is,  infinite  ". 

^  Vaughan  :    Hours  with  the  Mystics,  bk,  xii.  ch.  i.  seq. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

Modern  Mysticism 

IN  estimating  the  mystical  elements  in  religion  which 
have  been  at  work  during  the  last  century,  and  their 
influence  in  the  religious  thought  of  to-day,  we  shall  do 
well  first  to  recall  the  limits  of  our  subject.  It  is  with 
Mysticism  in  Christianity  that  we  are  concerned,  and  Mysti- 
cism has  never  been,  and  is  not  to-day,  confined  to  Christi- 
anity. It  has  been  at  the  root  of  any  and  every  religion 
worthy  of  the  name,  in  its  original  and  indefectible  "  feeling 
after  God,  if  haply  it  may  find  Him".  In  ancient  days  it 
inspired,  as  we  saw,  the  doctrines  of  Plotinus  and  his  school, 
whose  teaching  we  were  bound  to  examine,  because  of  its 
vast  influence  on  the  Christian  Faith ;  it  made  Moham- 
medanism the  amazing  force  it  was  ;  ^  Oriental  sects  as  far 
sundered  as  the  Kabbalists  and  the  Sufis  ;  thinkers  poles 
apart  like  Philo,  Spinoza,  and  Omar  Khayyam 'responded 
to  different  parts  of  its  message.  So,  in  our  own  time. 
Unitarians  such  as  Longfellow,  who  has  sudden  and  exqui- 
site touches  of  mystical  thought  ^  amidst  his  throng  of 
fataUy  fluent  verses ;   Emerson,  with  his  revival  of  the  old 

^  "  Mohammed's  sense  of  the  '  terror  of  the  Lord  '  was  so  intense 
that  his  hair  whitened  before  its  time  ;  yet  the  Arabs  called  him 
'the  lover  of  his  Maker'". — Church  Times,  Aug.  i8,  191 1. 

2  See,  e.g.,  his  six  noble  sonnets  on  the  "  Divina  Commedia  ", 
and  certain  passages  of  the  "  Golden  Legend",  which  in  itself  is 
a  curiously  vivid  "  vision  "  of  the  Middle  Ages,  if  nothing  else. 

246 


246  MODERN   MYSTICISM 

doctrine  of  "deification"/  and  the  great  mystic,  Maeter- 
linck, who  at  least  stands  outside  of,  or  indifferent  to, 
orthodox  Christianity,  are  examples  of  the  same  fact. 
Mysticism  found  for  itself  in  Christianity  a  field  of  the 
richest  and  most  fruitful  soil ;  but  not  its  only  field.  Never- 
theless] to  that  field  we  are  bound  here  to  confine  our 
attention. 

But  again,  although  Mysticism  has  been  the  inspiration 
of  all  that,  as  religion,  bears  the  intimate  tests  of  life,  and 
can  be  truly  termed  religion,  yet,  when  men  have  tried  to 
mould  its  intuitions  into  a  system,  '  to  crystallize  it  ",  as 
the  current  phrase  goes,  into  a  habitual  process,  the  breath 
of  life  departs  from  it.  "  Explain  it  how  we  may,  there 
would  seem  to  be  something  transient  and  incapable  of 
passing  into  institutions  in  the  higher  action  of  God's  Spirit 
in  history  ".'^  It  is  true  that  the  traditional  grades  of 
mystical  asce.at — of  the  Scala  Perfectionis — are  preserved 
within  the  Roman  Catholic  Communion,  but  it  is  no  less 
t-trange  than  true  that  just  when  the  mystical  scheme  had 
been  satisfactorily  settled  and  its  unalterable  plan  laid  down, 
the  convulsion  of  the  Reformation  took  place,  and  once 
more  freed  half  the  reUgious  mmds  in  Europe  from  a  too 
exact  observance  of  this  chart  of  the  inward  progress,  use- 
ful as  in  many  respects  such  a  chart  wiU  always  be.  It  is 
also  true  that  even  in  the  Roman  Communion  individual 
mystics  have  felt  themselves  imperatively  freed  from  a  rigid 
tracing  of  the  access  of  their  predecessors  to  the  Unio 
Mystica. 

So  it  has  been  also  with  other  movements,  or  with  move- 
ments within  other  religious  communions.     The  past  cen- 

^  In  excess,  of  course,  as  in  the  well-known  sentences,  "  I  become 
a  transparent  eye-ball.  I  am  nothing.  I  see  all.  The  currents 
of  the  universal  Being  circulate  through  me.     I  am  part  of  God  ". 

2  Upton  and  Drummond  :  Life  and  Letters  of  James  Martineau, 
vol.  i.  p.  431. 


EVANGELICALISM  247 

tury  was  prolific  of  such  movements,  and  without  doubt, 
an  element  of  true  Mysticism  is  discoverable  within  most 
of  them.     There  was  in  the   English   Church  that  great 
system  of  faith  and  of  the  inner  life  known  as  EvangeHcalism. 
This  in  its  transactional  and  rather  forensic  aoctrine  of  the 
"  Scheme  of  Salvation "   through  Christ,   involving  as  it 
did  the  notion  of  a  God  always  external  although  "  recon- 
ciled ",   was   antagonistic   to    Mysticism ;     nevertheless   it 
had  affinities  on  one  side  with  Mysticism  in  its  insistence  on 
the  surrender  of  the  self  into  the  entire  hold  and  power  of 
Another.     It  is  interesting  to   trace  the   development  of 
the  Evangelical  school  of  thought  to  the  earlier  Evangel- 
icalism of  the  Wesleys  and   Whitefield  in    the  eighteenth 
century,  which  in  turn  derived  in  part  from  the  Pietistic 
Movement   in   Germany   and   notably   from   the   "  Unitas 
Fratrum ",   or  Moravian  Brethren,^  interesting,  not  only 
because  the  alliance  between  the  Moravian  Church  and  the 
Evangehcals  is  still  in  force,  but  because  Count  Zinzendorf 
and  his  followers  did  communicate  a  feature  of  inner  experi- 
ence of  momentous  and  winning  power,  the  perpetual  soul 
vision,  for  it  was  little  less,  as  all  their  hymns  and  ritual 
testify,  of  the  Crucified  Saviour.     Between  the  intensity  of 
gaze  on  the  Lord's  Passion  of  the  medieval  mystic  Julian  of 
Norwich,  and  of  Zinzendorf,  Bohler,  and  Cennick  there  is  little 
to  choose ;    and  this  apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the 
Cross  resulted,  as  in  the  case  of  Bunyan,  Fox — though  to 
his  "  condition  "  Jesus  Christ  spoke  with  somewhat  different 
message — and  the  Wesleys,  in  a  fiery  enthusiasm  of  service. 
In  fact,  the  "  practical  mystic  ",  so  far  as  the  impulse  to 
evangelization  goes,  has  been  a  post-Reformation  product 

1  "  The  part  the  Moravians  played  in  the  EvangeHsm  of  England 
in  the  eighteenth  century  has  never  yet  been  fully  chronicled  ,  .  . 
the  actual  extent  of  the  work  was  astonishing  ...  a  spiritual 
factor  of  unrnistakable  influence  and  power."  Bishop  Hasse : 
The  Moravians,  p.  49. 


248  MODERN  MYSTICISM 

of  spiritual  experience.  Be  it  still  remembered  that  the 
experience  in  question,  though  vivid,  is  partial.  It  is  a 
crisis,  a  first  step,  of  infinite  importance,  but  by  itself  it 
does  not  constitute  the  message  of  Mysticism.  It  is  worth 
while  to  note  one  or  two  of  its  developments  however. 
Later  Evangelicalism  was  much  influenced,  we  might  per- 
haps say,  found  a  revival,  through  the  extraordinary  wave 
of  spiritual  emotion  that  swept  across  the  country  in  the 
"  seventies  "  of  last  century  through  the  ministry  of  Messrs. 
Moody  and  Sankey.  This  movement  was  remarkable  in 
many  ways.  It  came  from  America,  and  is  almost  directly 
traceable  to  the  strong  awakening  to  "  unseen  things  above  " 
which  the  awful  realities  of  life  and  death  brought  about 
in  the  vast  encampments  of  the  Northern  and  Southern 
armies  during  the  heroic  conflict  of  the  Civil  War.^  The 
result  of  the  movement  was  seen  chiefly  in  a  quickening 
of  the  perception  of  Christ,  not  only  as  Crucified,  but  as  a 
living,  personal  Companion  and  Friend.  Once  more  the 
"  Salve  Caput  cruentatum  !  "  of  the  Crusaders  turned  to 
St.  Bernard's,  "  Jesu,  dulcis  memoria  ".  A  new  chapter 
yet  in  the  history  of  Evangelicalism  opened  with  the  founding 
of  the  Keswick  Convention,  and  the  dissemination  of  its 
distinctive  teaching  of  the  indwelling  and  sanctifying  Christ, 
another  instance  of  how  doctrines  dear  to  Mysticism  have 
a  way  of  re-asserting  themselves  from  time  to  time  with 
inexhaustible  vitality.  A  long-remembered  event  at  one 
of  these  Conventions  was  the  visit  and  preaching  of  Mr. 
Andrew  Murray,  whose  spiritual  writings,  full  of  the  message 
of  the  Inward  Christ,  had  for  several  years  exercised  a 
profound  influence  both  in  and  beyond  Evangelical  circles. 

^  It  will  be  remembered  that  some  of  the  melodies  to  the  "  Re- 
vival "  hj-mns  of  the  time  were  originally  battle-songs,  or  plaintive 
slave-songs.  One  is  reminded  of  some  words  of  Mr.  Maurice  Baring  : 
"  War  is  perhaps  to  man  what  motherhood  is  to  woman,  a  burden, 
a  source  of  untold  suffering,  and  yet  a  glory  ". 


THE  OXFORD  MOVEMENT  249 

It  may  be  asked  whether,  in  the  opposite  section  of 
EngUsh  Church  thought,  the  Oxford  Movement  was  not 
essentially  mystical  in  its  conceptions  and  aims.  At  first 
sight,  there  is  much  to  favour  such  a  view.  The  stress 
laid  on  symbolism  in  outward  rite  and  ceremony,  the  pre- 
sence of  poets  such  as  Keble  and  Isaac  Williams  in  its  ranks, 
^he  revival,  by  scholars  like  Neale,  of  the  so-called 
"  mystical "  method  of  interpretation  of  the  Older  Scrip- 
tures, would  all  seem  to  urge  an  affirmative  answer.  Yet, 
on  a  closer  survey,  the  conclusion  must  be  arrived  at  that 
the  Tractarian  Movement  was  really  inimical  to  the  true 
spirit  of  Mysticism.  A  renewal  of  the  desire  for  outward 
accessories  of  worship  was  partly  fostered  by  the  Romanti- 
cist and  medieval  taste  engendered  by  the  work  of  Scott 
and  his  school ;  the  older  Tractarians  were,  personally,  by 
no  means  addicted  to  outward  ceremonial  as  such,  and  the 
swift  growth  of  this  ceremonial,  which  was  due  to  the  later 
Ritualists,  rather  than  the  Tractarians,  has  been  largely 
of  a  haphazard  nature,  and  still  lacks,  in  the  Church  as  a 
whole,  that  regulating  sanction,  uniformity,  and  unvarying 
significance  which  alone  give  to  outward  symbolism  a  teach- 
ing value.  The  guiding  principle  of  Tractarians  and  Ritual- 
ists alike  has  been  that  of  a  stern  and  unquestioning  sub- 
mission of  belief,  will,  and  heart  to  the  authoritative  decrees 
of  an  "  Ecclesia  docens ".  This  principle  is  one  by  no 
means  favourable  to  the  ^^o<?  of  Mysticism  which,  in  the 
Universal  Church,  has  always  acted  as  a  balancing  force 
to  it,  and,  whilst  on  its  guard  against  Antinomianism,  has 
instinctively  fought  for  freedom  in  the  things  of  the  spirit. 
Moreover,  the  "  advanced  High  Churchmen  "  (it  is  impos- 
sible to  avoid  the  use  of  some  such  phrase)  have  failed  to 
find  their  "  Ecclesia  docens  ",  at  least,  in  regard  to  the 
points  of  doctrine  they  hold  most  dear,  and  so  have  fallen 
back  on  the  Medieval  Church  for  a  good  part  of  their  moral 
support,  being,  so  far,  worse  off  than  strict  Roman  Catho- 


350  MODERN   MYSTICISM 

lies,  who  have  at  least  a  hving  voice  and  a  present  discipline 
behind  them. 

John  Feble,  of  course,  belongs  to  a  different  category. 
Thoroughly  faithful' to  an  interpretation  of  the  Church's 
rubrics  and  ordinances  which  had  a  tradition,  unbroken 
from  the  Reformation,  to  support  it,  he  was  a  nature-mystic 
as  well.  The  watchword  of  all  his  mysticism  is  contained 
in  the  well-known  verse  for  Septuagesima  Sunday : — 

"  Two  worlds  are  ours  ;  'tis  only  sin  * 

Forbids  us  to  descry 
The  mystic  heaven  and  earth  within. 
Plain  as  the  sea  and  sky  "  : 

and,  catching  up  the  pen  which  had  faUen  from  George 
Herbert's  wasted  fingers  in  Bemerton  Parsonage  two  cen- 
turies before,  this  saintly  parish  priest  traced,  Uke  him, 
lovingly  and  reverently,  for  aU  who  would  hear,  the  Divine 
likeness  and  Divine  truths  as  they  were  shadowed  forth 
for  him  in  the  fair  world  around.  It  would  be  too  much  to 
say  that  his  Mysticism  was  not  "  cribb'd,  cabin'd,  and  con- 
fined "  by  the  necessities  of  the  doctrinal  behefs  to  which 
he  felt  himself  pledged,  but  if,  as  surely  is  the  fact,  Maeter- 
linck's saying  is  true,  "  Une  oeuvre  ne  vieiUit  qu'en  pro- 
portion de  son  antimysticisme  ",  then  the  acceptance  and 
study  of  Keble's  "  Christian  Year  "  by  rehgious  people  of 
all  shades  of  conviction  since  his  day  is  some  proof  of  a 
gift  which  he  shared  with  Augustine,  with  a  Kempis,  and 
with  Bunyan. 

Yet  we  feel  that  the  true  touch  of  mystical  teaching  has 
been  handed  on  in  England  by  other  agency  than  that  of 
such  organized  movements  as  those  just  considered,  or  than 
even  such  consecrated  powers  of  vision  and  expression  as 
those  of  a  Keble.  In  Keble  we  miss  just  what  the  highes;t 
mysticism  inevitably  gives,  if  only  in  flashes.  Over  his 
work  rests  such  a  level,  subdued,  afternoon  light  as  invari- 


THE   VICTORIAN   POETS  251 

ably  illuminates  Tissot's  scenes  of  the  Christ-life  on  earth. 
The  intuition  from  beyond,  the  sense  of  a  revelation,  the 
moment  of  ecstasy,  or  anything  approaching  it,  are  wanting. 
Yet  these  were  by  no  means  lacking  to  the  thought  of  the 
last  century.  Stray  instances  of  the  mystical  spirit,  hints 
and  gleams  of  some  subconscious  feeling  or  experience  aUen 
alike  from  simple  imagination  and  simple  spirituahty  are 
scattered  up  and  down  the  writings  of  the  time  and  proceed 
from  minds  of  very  different  temperament.  What  was  it 
that,  more  than  anything  else,  inspired  and  supported 
such  a  mood,  in  which  a  strange  illumination,  an  expectation, 
a  yearning  seemed  to  seek  expression  ?  It  was  the  work 
of  the  Poets.  The  Victorian  era  was  a  kind  of  Golden  Age 
of  English  poetry,  and  among  the  throng  of  the  singers  of 
the  age,  two  or  three  stand  out  as  not  merely  poets,  but 
seers,  with  the  burden  of  a  message  to  the  world  that  was, 
again  and  again,  a  definite  and  exquisite  reiteration  of  one 
aspect  or  another  of  ancient  mystical  doctrine.  Yet  what 
they  attained  of  vision  or  experience  they  reached,  as  Miss 
Underbill  remarks,  not  by  any  exact  and  conscious  pursuit 
of  the  mystical  way,  or  ascent  of  its  grades  :  rather,  they 
seemed  to  dwell  naturally  in  the  stage  of  Illumination.  ^ 
Nearly  every  member  of  the  great  choir  of  poets  of  the 
nineteenth  century  contributed  to  keep  alive  the  mystical 
spirit  in  England.  One  might  instance  the  school  of  pre- 
Raphaelite  poetry,  notably  the  poems  of  the  Rossettis,  as 
evoking  the  spirit  of  the  Past — of  an  imaginative  Past,  at 
any  rate,  which  does  not  die  with  the  passage  of  history — 
and  opening  the  soul's  casement  to  "  faery  lands  forlorn  ". 
Or  one  might  dwell  on  the  splendid  joy  in  humanity,  and 
in  God  in  himianity,  of  thinkers  such  as  Browning  and 

1  E.  Underbill :  Mysticism,  p.  286.  A  "  purged  and  heightened 
consciousness  "  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  process  of  the  Purgative 
stage  on  the  Scala  Perfectionis,  as  Cathohc  Mystical  Theology 
understood  the  term. 


252  MODERN  MYSTICISM 

Kingsley — it  is  not  necessary  to  place  them  in  the  same 
poetic  category — or  again  on  the  sense,  a  true  instinct,  of 
loss,  of  negation,  "  of  the  darkness  which  lies  coiled  in  the 
abyss  of  Deity  itself,  the  eternal  Nay,  which  d\Yells  even 
in  the  heart  of  the  everlasting  Yea  ",^  which  finds  expression 
in  the  poems  of  Arnold  and  Clough ;  or  yet  again  on  the 
self-absorption  in  Nature,  the  well-nigh  pure  Pantheism, 
of  T.  E.  Brown,  a  poet  who  yet  waits  to  come  fully  to  his 
own.  These  all  reflected  certain  instinctive  yearnings, 
cravings,  or  triumphant  spiritual  discoveries  of  their  times, 
and  they  all  have  touches  of  that  psychic  intuition  or  vision 
which  proclaims  the  mystic.  There  are,  however,  four 
poets  especially  who  deserve  our  attention  in  this  connexion. 
For  one  thing,  all  four  were  naturally,  through  and  through, 
mystics  of  a  high  order ;  for  another,  all  four  gave,  with 
whatever  qualifications  the  critic  may  discern  in  their 
writings,  unequivocal  outward  assent  to  the  Christian  Reve- 
lation. These  four  were  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Tennyson, 
and  Coventry  Patmore. 

(i)  S.  T.  Coleridge,  who,  as  a  boy  at  Christ's  Hospital, 
talked— he  was  always  a  marvellous  talker — in  Charles 
Lamb's  hearing  of  Plotinus  and  lamblichus,  and,  later, 
found  that  Tauler,  Fox,  Behmen,  and  Law  "  contributed 
to  keep  ahve  the  heart  in  the  head  ",  exhibited  the  philo- 
sophical side  of  Mysticism.  "  Every  man  ",  he  was  wont 
to  say,  with  no  doubt  as  to  his  own  standpoint,  "  is  born 
either  a  Platonist  or  an  Aristotelian  ",  and  he  made  it  his 
work  to  spread  the  principles  of  transcendentalism  in  this 
country.  He  discriminated  sharply  between  the  pure 
Reason  and  the  Understanding.  The  latter  is  the  lower 
organ  that  takes  notes  of  and  makes  its  deductions  from 
facts  ;  the  former  is  a  Divine  gift  of  intuition,  whereby  we 
apprehend  spiritual  truth.     In  his  doctrine  as  to  Reason, 

1  R.  H.  Coats  :    Types  of  English  Piety,  p.  183. 


S.   T.   COLERIDGE  253 

itself  a  beam  of  the  Uncreated  Light,  Coleridge  showed 
affinities  to  the  Cambridge  Platonists,  and  to  the  earlier 
schools  which  discoursed  of  the  Fiinkelein,  or  Divine  Spark 
in  the  soul.  In  some  ways  he  anticipated  certain  parts  of 
the  Modernist  teaching  of  to-day,  as  when  he  depreciates 
the  importance  of  facts  as  facts,  and  puts  the  principles 
and  truths  first  which  the  facts  illustrate.  Granted,  indeed, 
some  universal  and  eternal  Truth,  and  there  must  be  facts 
in  time  and  space  to  illustrate  it.  So  he  arrived  at  Christi- 
anity. Not  that  he  did  not,  all  his  days,  subscribe  to  the 
orthodox  faith,  indeed,  his  devotion  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  such  that  he  wished  it  memorialized  on  his  grave- 
stone. But  the  orthodox  faith  gradually  commended  itself 
to  him  because  he  found  that  the  dogmas  of  the  Trinity,  of 
the  Incarnation,  and  of  the  Redemption  exactly  suited  the 
needs  of  human  nature  and  were  in  correspondence  with 
the  philosophic  reason.  "  Christian  evidences "  troubled 
him  not  one  way  or  the  other.  There  was  indeed  a  time 
when  he  could  exclaim,  "  The  article  of  faith  which  is  nearest 
to  my  heart — the  pure  fountain  of  all  my  moral  and  reli- 
gious feelings  and  comforts — is  the  absolute  Impersonality 
of  the  Deity  "  ;  ^  but  he  advanced  from  this  to  a  stage  in 
which  (in  1834)  he  talked  of  Holy^Baptism  and  the  Eucharist 
as  being — not  parts  of,  but — Christianity  itself ;  yet  this 
again  was  probably  an  outcome  of  his  disregard  for  the 
historic  facts  behind  these  Sacraments.  Thus  far  would  he 
go  and  no  farther.  Prayer  with  him  was  not  a  vocal  act, 
but  a  "  sense  of  supplication  ",  and  his  whole  heart  ex- 
presses itself  in  the  lines  in  "  Religious  Musings  " — 

"  From  Hope  and  firmer  Faith  to  perfect  Love 
Attracted  and  absorbed  ;  and  centred  there 
God  only  to  behold,  and  know,  and  feel. 
Till  by  exclusive  consciousness  of  God 
All  self -annihilated  the  soul  shall  make 
God  its  identity ;  God  all  in  all  ". 

^  Letters,  December  5,  1803. 


254  MODERN  MYSTICISM 

(2)  Wordsworth's  poetry  ";is  ",  says  Dr.  Inge,  "  the  best 
example  in  literature  of  a  revelation  through  impersonal 
external  nature  ".^  Of  that  revelation  at  its  ^lighest,  "  the 
serene  and  blessed  mood  ",  we  have  already  spoken  in  intro- 
ducing the  subject  of  Mysticism.  Here  we  must  note  that 
there  are  two  facts  in  Wordsworth's  attitude  towards 
Nature  and  his  own  nature  which  make  that  experience 
something  far  more  important  than  any  mere  passing  rap- 
ture of  the  imagination,  caught  lightly  from  some  sudden 
appreciation  of  beauty  and  as  hghtly  lost.  No  ;  he  alludes 
to  it  again  and  again ;  it  is  with  him  "  the  highest  bliss 
that  flesh  can  know  ",  it  is  the  feehng  "  that  we  are  greater 
than  we  know  ",  the  consciousness  of  what  we  really  are, 
"  habitually  infused  through  every  image  and  through 
every  thought,  and  all  affections  by  communion  raised 
from  earth  to  heaven,  from  human  to  divine  ".  But  this 
fine  exaltation  of  spirit  was  only  attained  because,  to  Words- 
worth's mind,  Nature  was  neither  a  sphere,  as  with  the 
medieval  ascetics,  somehow  inimical,  somehow  dangerous 
to  the  single-hearted  searcher  after  God,  nor  again,  a  raree- 
rhow  of  curiosities  and  enigmas  out  of  which  the  quaintest 
(•r.nceits  and  the  most  far-fetched  analogies  could  be  spun. 
The  great  reign  and  persuasion  of  Natural  Law  had  begun 
iti  contemporary  thought,  and  .Vordsworth's  whole  dis- 
position, iane,  moderate,  contemplative,  fitted  him  to  be 
at  first  the  disciple  of  this  trend  of  teaching,  and  then,  after 
overcoming  the  temptation  to  yield  without  reservation  to 
its  apparently  inexorable  logic,  to  become  the  prophet  of 
a  new  Gospel.  Nature,  to  his  intention,  was  the  store- 
house of  laws  whence  we  can  deduce,  noc  accidental  like- 
ness to  this  or  that  doctrine  of  the  Faith,  but  the  very  truths 
of  God's  existence.  Wordsworth  was  always,  as  his  "  Eccle- 
siastical Sonnets  "  show,  a  devout  Churchman ;  but  his 
study  of  Nature  was  his  true  worship  and  his  nearest  means 
^  English  Mystics,  p.  185. 


WORDSWORTH  255 

of  access  to  God.  There,  rather  than  in  ceremonial,  lay 
the  vital  symbolism,  the  real  and  enduring  analogies  to 
things  Divine. 

But  the  contemplation  of  Nature  was  not  the  only  im- 
portant factor  in  Wordsworth's  mysticism.  By  itself  it 
would  never  have  brought  him  his  rapturous  moods.  It 
must  be  a  contemplation  interfused  with  sympathy.  The 
mind  that  observes  must  be  in  tune  with  what  is  observed. 
We  spoke  of  Wordsworth's  attitude  towards  his  own  nature 
as  well  as  towards  Nature  in  general.  It  is  a  fact  of  the 
first  import  if  we  would  rightly  apprehend  his  powers  as 
poet  and  mystic  alike.  In  Wordsworth's  case,  and  in  the 
noblest  sense,  "  the  eye  brought  with  it  what  it  saw ". 
More  nearly  than  any  other  modern  mystic,  Wordsworth 
passed  deliberately  through  a  "  Purgative "  stage.  He 
beat  down  with  steady  purpose  his  natural  passions,  and 
with  them  ambition,  love  of  money,  and  any  tendencies 
which  he  detected  towards  unquiet  of  mind,  hatred  and 
vengeance.  It  is  this  long  struggle  of  self -discipline,  the 
fact  that  "  there  is  volition  and  self-government  in  every 
line  of  his  poetry",  and  that  "  he  contests  the  ground  inch 
by  inch  with  all  despondent  and  indolent  humours,  and 
often,  too,  with  movements  of  inconsiderate  and  wasteful 
joy  ",i  that  lead  us  to  consider  with  homage  and  awe  such 
experiences  as  that  at  Tintern  Abbey.  Wordsworth's 
teaching,  in  fine,  is  that  it  is  not  through  Nature  alone,  or 
through  the  soul  alone,  that  God  finds  His  means  of  speech, 
but  through  the  union  of  the  disciplined  soul  with  Nature. 
It  was  from  this  contact,  calmly,  reverently,  and  persistently 
achieved,  that  deeper  mystical  knowledge  came,  the  dis- 
cernment of  "  Being  spread.  O'er  all  that  moves  and  all 
that  seemeth  still ",  the  "  sense  sublime  of  something  .  .  . 
interfused.  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns.  And 
the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air.  And  the  blue  sky,  and 
1  Hutton  :    Essays,  p.  81. 


256  MODERN   MYSTICISM 

in  the  mind  of  man  ".^  It  is  significant,  but  to  the  student 
of  Mysticism  not  unexpected,  that  with  this  sense  of  a 
personaHty  pervading  all  things  came  an  ever  deeper  reahza- 
tion  of  the  poet's  own  personality,  a  "  sinking  into  self 
from  thought  to  thought  ", 

(3)  The  work  of  Tennyson  on  Nature — supremely  great 
as  Wordsworth's,  but  on  other  lines — differs  from  his  in 
two  very  definite  respects.  For  one  thing,  instead  of  dealing 
in  generahzations,  it  is  exquisite  and  minute  in  observation 
— more,  perhaps,  the  work  of  the  poet  with  notebook  in 
hand.  For  another  thing,  if  we  make  a  few  exceptions 
such  as  "  The  Higher  Pantheism  ",  and  "  Flower  in  the 
Crannied  Wall ",  Tennyson  viewed  Nature  lovingly,  un- 
erringly, but  did  not  draw  his  essential  vision  of  God  thence. 
He  never  took  into  his  gaze,  as  did  Wordsworth,  the  world 
of  Nature  as  a  whole,  graciously  and  blandly.  He  felt, 
for  example,  antipathies.  A  whole  catena  of  quotations 
could  be  made,  for  example,  to  show  that  Tennyson  had 
a  certain  dread  of  and  aversion  from  the  Sea.  It  was  to 
him  the  symbol  of  Change,  of  Doubt,  of  merciless  Force, 
of  the  inexplicable  Wrath  that  coils  beneath  or  peers  out 
from  the  fair  external  shows  of  Nature.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  Tennyson's  was  a  soul  sensitive  to  every 
breath  of  opinion,  to  every  sound  of  challenging  creeds  which 
filled  the  troubled  air  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was 
like  an  aeolian  harp  in  its  reception  and  resonance  of  these 
various  motions  and  cries  of  the  spirit.^  Therefore,  to 
Tennyson,  the  problem  of  the  world  as  a  revelation  of  God 


*  Tin  tern  Abbey,  95-99. 

2  One  may  instance  "  Sir  Galahad  ",  "  St.  Agnes'  Eve  ",  "  The 
Holy  Grail  ",  as  reflecting  the  pre-RaphaeUte  inspiration  ;  "  Enoch 
Arden  "  as  a  touch  of  the  humanistic  spirit  of  Browning  ;  while 
the  general  restlessness  and  doubt  of  his  age  are  again  and  again 
expressed  in  the  poems  of  one  who  did  not  fail,  on  a  direct  challenge, 
to  profess  his  unwavering  inner  faith  as  a  Christian. 


TENNYSON  257 

was  far  more  complex  than  to  Wordsworth.  He,  Hke 
Wordsworth,  could  accept  the  belief  in  a  law  operative 
and  faultlessly  operative  everywhere,  but  his  heart  echoed 
the  distrust  of  his  day  ;  Was  that  law  always  and  flawlessly 
good  ?  What  of  Nature  "  red  in  tooth  and  claw  "  ?  There- 
fore Tennyson  widened  his  outlook  infinitely,  and,  whilst 
never  ceasing  to  be  the  keen  and  lover-like  observer  of 
Nature,  became,  where  his  revelation  of  God  was  concerned, 
the  cosmic  poet  and  seer.  Yes  ;  even  seer  ;  for,  to  take 
an  example,  the  Evolutionary  teaching  of  "  In  Memoriam  " 
preceded  the  appearance  of  Darwin's  great  book  by  about 
nine  years.  It  was  a  special  gift  of  his  poetry  in  fact,  to 
receive,  idealize,  even  at  times  to  anticipate,  the  truths  of 
modern  Science — "  De  Profundis  ",  the  "  In  Memoriam  ", 
the  "  Ancient  Sage  ",  and  many  others  of  his  later  and,  un- 
fortunately, less  read  poems  witness  to  this  strange  power. 
His  contribution  to  Mysticism,  his  claim  to  be  considered 
a  mystic,  lies,  however,  elsewhere.  The  sense  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  all  things,  their  complexity,  their  entanglements, 
their  seeming  self-contradictions  grew  on  him  with  the 
years,  but  also  the  conviction  of  a  Purpose,  the  End  "  to 
which  the  whole  creation  moves".  This  Purpose  in  creation 
he  interpreted  in  terms  of  Personality.  Not  only  did  he 
cling  unfalteringly,  if  at  times  as  it  were  almost  breathlessly, 
to  his  belief  in  the  indissolubility  and  identity  through  all 
change  of  human  personahty,^  but  it  was  in  the  deepest 
realizations  of  his  own  personality  that  there  came  on  him 
that  Trance  or  Ecstasy  which  he  described  thrice  in  the 
"  In  Memoriam  ",  in  "  The  Ancient  Sage  ",  his  own  creed, 
and  in  the  conversation  reported  m  the  "Memoir  "  by  his  son. 
Perhaps  the  last  will  serve  our  purpose  best  for  quotation.'^ 

^  As  at  the  close  of  his  fine  poem  "  Vastness  ".  His  belief  in 
immoii^lity,  survival  of  individual  identity  and  memory,  was 
quickened  to  passion  by  the  loss  of  his  friend  Hallam. 

-  Memoiy,  vol.  I.  p.  320 ;    of.  for  the  experieince  In  Memcvinwi 
M.C.  S 


258  MODERN   MYSTICISM 

"  (There  is)  a  kind  of  waking  trance  I  have  often  had,  quite 
from  boyhood,  when  I  have  been  all  alone.  This  has  gener- 
ally come  to  me  through  repeating  my  own  name  two  or 
three  times  to  myself  silently,  till  all  at  once,  out  of  the 
intensity  of  the  consciousness  of  individuahty,  the  individual 
itself  seemed  to  dissolve  and  fade  away  into  boundless 
being  ;  and  this  not  a  confused  state,  but  the  clearest  of 
the  clearest,  and  the  surest  of  the  surest  .  .  .  utterly  beyond 
words,  where  death  was  an  almost  laughable  impossibihty  ". 
It  was  doubtless  the  repetition  of  this  experience  which 
communicated  to  several  of  Tennyson's  later  poems  that 
strangely  psychic  touch  which  continually  seems  to  report 
of  "  a  world  that  is  not  ours  ",  and  is  as  repellent  to  some 
readers  as  it  is  fascinating  to  others. 

Now  it  is  remarkable  that,  despite  his  overpowering  sense 
of  personality,  Tennyson  twice  hints,  in  the  records  of 
his  trance-experience,  at  a  possible  loss  of  individuality  which 
should  lead  to  a  fuller  state  of  being.  Thus,  the  words 
which  immediately  follow  the  prose  quotation  above  run, 
"  the  loss  of  personaUty  (if  so  it  were)  seeming  no  extinction, 
but  the  only  true  life  "  ;  and  in  the  "  Ancient  Sage  "  he 
speaks  of  "  loss  of  self  ",  and  "  thro'  loss  of  self,  the  gain 
of  such  large  life  as  match'd  with  ours  were  Sun  to  spark  ". 
The  clue  to  this  enigma  of  loss,  which  is  yet  a  gain,  is  sup- 
plied by  the  mysticism  of  Coventry  Patmore. 

(4)  It  is  to  be  feared  that  Patmore's  beautiful  poetry, 
and  almost  equally  beautiful  prose  still  goes  half  unread, 
and  a  great  deal  more  than  half  unappreciated.  Just  as 
there  are  those  who,  perhaps  influenced  by  the  tradition 
of  Fitzgerald's  criticism,  lay  down  their  Tennyson  at  the 

XCV.  where  the  prelude  of  the  perfect  calm  noted  by  Plotinus 
is  fully,  and,  no  doubt,  with  regard  to  its  import,  unconsciously, 
described.  In  "  The  Ancient  Sage  "  we  have  the  same  process 
as  is  recorded  in  the  "  Memoir",  until  "  the  mortal  Umit  of  the 
Self  was  loosed,  and  past  into  the  Nameless  ". 


COVENTRY   PATMORE  259 

end  of  the  "  Idylls  ",  so  there  are  many  who  only  know, 
and  think  it  fashionable  to  despise,  Patmore  as  the  author 
of  "  The  Angel  in  the  House  ".  How  even  they  can  miss 
the  incomparable  felicity  of  diction,  and  the  almost  uncanny 
psychological  power  of  the  Preludes  and  Epilogues  which 
break  the — ^let  us  confess — rather  ambUng  narrative  of  that 
poem,  it  is  difficult  to  conjecture.  Anyhow,  Patmore  was, 
in  the  earlier  part  of  his  life,  by  deliberate  and  indomitable 
resolve,  the  lyrist,  as  everyone  knows,  of  earthly  love,  the 
love  that  completes  itself  in  nuptial  bliss.  Even  of  this 
period  and  of  this  poem,  Mrs,  Meynell  writes,  "  This  laureate 
of  the  tea-table  .  .  ,  is  in  his  heart  the  most  arrogant  and 
visionary  of  mystics  ".  But  there  was  much  more  to  come. 
Patmore  gradually  saw  in  the  mysteries  of  earthly  love  a 
living  type  and  symbol  of  the  Divine  Union  with  the  soul. 
He  interpreted  love  as  "  the  mystic  craving  of  the  great  to 
become  the  love-captive  of  the  small,  while  the  small  has 
a  corresponding  thirst  for  the  enthralment  of  the  great ". 
This  metaphor,  as  Mr.  Gosse,  his  friend  and  commentator, 
explains,  "  he  expanded  in  a  great  variety  of  images  and 
reflections,  where  the  Deity  was  represented  as  masculine 
and  active,  and  the  human  soul  as  feminine  and  passive  ".  ^ 
God  with  him  was  Thesis,  Manhood  Antithesis,  and  the 
Neuter  "  is  not  the  absence  of  the  life  of  sex,  but  its  fulfil- 
ment and  power  ".  It  is  in  the  poems  of  the  "  Unknown 
Eros  "  and  especially  in  the  three  Psyche  odes  that  this  idea 
is  worked  out,  and  in  thefm  "  Patmore's  genius  may  be  said 
to  have  culminated.  If  we  wish  to  study  his  metaphysical 
poetry  at  its  most  elaborate  height  of  subtlety  and  S3mibol, 
we  should  pass  at  once  to  these  poems,  ,  ,  ,  Their  subject 
must  always  remove  them  from  popular  approval  "  (it  did, 
of  course,  in  Patmore's  own  day),  "  but  it  is  to  be  conceived 
that  a  small  circle,  of  those  who  comprehend,  may  con- 

^  Edmund  Gosse:    Coventry  Patmore,  p.  237. 


26o  MODERN  MYSTICISM 

tinue  as  time  goes  on,  to  contemplate  them  with  an  ahnost 
idolatrous  admiration  ".^ 

When  Patmore  dealt,  in  this  "  spirit  of  profound  and 
daring  speculation,  with  the  mysteries  of  religion  ",  he  was, 
of  course,  as  he  was  fond  of  declaring,  only  reiterating 
what  several  Fathers  of  the  Church  had  hinted,  and  certain 
schools  of  medieval  Mysticism  had  taught.  He  was  a 
devout,  if  at  times  rather  irresponsible,  Roman  Catholic, 
had  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  and 
found  extreme  delight  in  the  works  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross. 
His  definition  of  love,  appHed  to  the  Divine  Love,  led  him 
directly  to  the  doctrine  of  that  ineffable  Self-hmitation  of 
God,  in  His  dehght  to  be  with  the  sons  of  men,  which  is 
expressed  by  the  dogma  of  the  Incarnation.  Indeed,  Pat- 
more  shews  the  mystical  reaction  from  Wordsworth's 
craving  for  the  Infinite  as  the  true  home  of  the  soul,  and 
Tennyson's  oft-repeated  and  fascinated  exultation  in  the 
"  boundless  inward  in  the  atom,  boundless  outward  in  the 
Whole  ",  by  emphasizing  in  characteristic  fashion  his  re- 
coil from  such  conceptions  of  Divine  revelation.  "  '  The 
Infinite  !  '  Word  horrible  !  at  feud  with  life  ",  he  cries,  and 
declares  that  "  but  for  compulsion  of  strong  grace.  The 
pebble  in  the  road  Would  straight  explode  ".  And  again, 
"  Ah  !  who  can  express 

How  full  of  bonds  and  simpleness 

Is  God, 

How  narrow  is  He, 

And  how  the  wide,  waste  field  of  possibility 

Is  only  trod 

Straight  to  His  homestead  in  the  human  heart ". 

To  him  the  human  body  is  the  "  wall  of  infinitude  ",  the 
"  Httle,  sequester'd  pleasure  house.  For  God  and  for  His 
Spouse  ". 

Nor  was  such  language  mere  poetic  theory.  This  man, 
^  lb.  p.  242. 


i 


MYSTICISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY  261 

who  went  to  his  yearly  Retreats  with  as  much  jubilation 
as  schoolboys  go  for  their  holidays,  and  who  was  at  last 
laid  to  rest  "  in  the  rough  habit  of  the  stern  Franciscan 
order  ",  knew  in  his  later  years  an  intimate  communion 
with  his  God  which  had  in  it  the  mingled  sweetness  and 
terror  which  all  saints  of  the  mystical  order  have  known, 
and  of  which  Francis  Thompson  hints  in  his  commemorative 
ode  on  the  poet.  Patmore  did  in  fact,  in  entirety,  and  in 
utter  submission  of  his  strong  will,  what  the  earlier  mystics 
had  shrunk  from  doing,  he  transferred  the  love-imagery 
used  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  written  plain  before  him 
in  the  facts  of  human  nuptials,  from  their  application  to 
the  love  "  betwixt  Christ  and  His  Church  "  to  a  union  be- 
twixt God  and  the  individual  soul.  In  the  resolute  and 
entranced  energy  with  which  he  pursued  his  tremendous 
ideal,  and  in  the  writings — some  of  the  most  daring  were 
destroyed — which  he  left  to  commemorate  it,  he  remains 
one  of  the  greatest  of  mystics. 

Here,  perhaps,  we  may  fitly  bring  to  a  close  our  survey 
of  the  history  of  Mysticism  within  the  bounds  and  sanctions 
of  the  Christian  Faith.  It  is  not  necessary  to  recapitulate 
the  essentials  of  what  constitutes  Mysticism ;  that  was 
attempted  at  the  outset,  and  the  subsequent  task  has  been 
to  show  how  the  intense,  ever-renewed,  never  completely 
satisfied  craving  of  the  soul  for  "  God  Who  is  our  Home  ", 
though  not  confined  to  Christianity,  has  found,  despite  its 
emphasis  on  Immediacy  of  communion  and  its  strong  indi- 
vidualistic trend,  its  happiest  and  native  terrain  in  the 
Christian  Church.  Christ  and  Plotinus  really  met,  though 
centuries  parted  their  earthly  lives  ;  and  whilst  history 
would  affirm  that  the  thought  of  Plotinus  left  an  ineffable 
imprint  on  Christian  doctrine,  yet  the  apparent  victory 
was  only,  in  the  long  run,  part  of  that  great  absorptive 
faculty  which  Christianity  shews  for  all  that  is  good,  strong, 
and  enduring  in  outside  thought  or  character.    The  name 


263  MODERN  MYSTICISM 

of  Plotinus,  to  many  a  true  mystic,  has  become  vague  and 
shadowy,  the  Name  of  Christ  is  a  reaUty.  "  When  one 
wants  most  to  be  mystical,  and  most  to  benefit  by  such  a 
spirit,  one  would  still  .  .  .  turn  to  the  simple  presentation 
of  it  in  Galilee".  ^ 

It  is  a  truism  that  Mysticism  is  in  the  air  at  the  present 
day.  But  it  is  a  Mysticism  that  mostly  does  not  decisively 
venture  beyond  its  natural  Theism,  and  remains  wavering 
on  the  verge  of  the  Illuminative  stage.  It  has  glimpses  of 
God  and  longs  for  Him.  Now  God  is  approached  from 
various  accesses,  and  one  of  His  aspects  is  Truth.  It  is 
characteristic  of  the  vague  Mysticism  of  our  time  that  it 
connects  itself,  more  often  than  not,  with  a  keen  criticism 
of  Christian  dogma,  or  rather  of  the  historicity  of  the  facts 
on  which  certain  dogmas  are  founded.  This  is  at  once  a 
warning  and  an  encouragement  to  the  Christian  Church. 
Mysticism,  though  not  all  the  hfe  of  rehgion,  which  has 
many  factors  and  activities  incidental  to  its  progress,  is 
of  the  essence  of  spiritual  vitality.  It  can  be  alienated,  or 
ostracized  from,  or  starved  out  of  a  Church.  It  can  be 
warped  in  its  growth.  IModernism  is  seeking  to  prevent 
the  recurrence  of  any  such  catastrophe  at  the  present  day 
by  its  effort  to  show  that  the  facts  of  the  Gospel  history, 
while  not  to  be  reckoned  as  of  prior  importance  to  the  inner 
and  external  truths  which  they  illustrate,  yet  are  congruous 
to  them  and,  in  some  mysterious  way,  fit  in  with  the  needs 
of  man's  nature.  If  it  can  accompHsh  this  task,  weU  and 
good ;  but  if  it  makes  the  one  step  further  in  its  Christian 
Pragmatism  and  hints  that  the  faith  in  man — his  will  to 
believe — engendered  the  records  of  the  facts,  and  justified 
those  records  as  symbols  merely,  then  Modernism  will  fail 
to  satisfy  that  thirst  for  the  very  truth  which  makes  Mystic- 
ism something  more  than  Imagination,  and  will  itself  have 

^  Dr.  H.  P.  Waddell :    Thoughts  on  Modtrn  Mysticism,  p.  341. 


THE   GOAL  OF  MYSTICISM  263 

to  struggle  for  foothold  within  the  Church  which  must 
always  shelter  and  sustain  in  his  spiritual  life  the  "  plain 
man  "  as  such.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  encouragement 
in  the  outlook.  Such  an  atmosphere  of  Mysticism  as  is 
around  us  now  prophesies  for  the  Christian  Society,  if  the 
Church  can  be  patient  and  wise,  learn  and  receive  as  well 
as  dictate  and  dogmatize,  a  great  accession  of  strength 
and  insight.  For  Mysticism,  with  its  tradition  of  quietude, 
its  detachment  from  the  world,  its  eagerness  for  "  God 
only  "  is  that  quality  precisely  of  which  the  CathoHc  Church 
must  always  avail  itself,  and  which  it  has  the  power  and 
commission  to  train  and  discipline.  The  return  which 
Mysticism  has  always  made  is  inestimable.  It  is  that 
holiness,  which,  to  use  the  words  of  Lord  Morley,  "  is  not 
the  same  as  duty,  still  less  is  it  the  same  as  religious  belief. 
It  is  a  name  for  an  inner  grace  of  Nature,  an  instinct  of 
the  soul,  by  which,  though  knowing  of  earthly  appetities 
and  worldly  passions,  the  spirit,  purifying  itself  of  these, 
and  independent  of  all  reason,  argument,  and  the  fierce 
struggles  of  the  will,  dwells  in  living,  patient,  and  confident 
communion  with  the  unseen  Good  ". 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I.  The  following  works  are  suggested  as  useful  to  a  general 
introduction  to  the  study  of  Mysticism. 

Dr.  W.  R.  Inge,  Dean  of  St.     Christian  Mysticism  (Bampton  Lec- 
Paul's  tures). 

Studies  of  English  Mystics. 

Dr.  Rufus  M.  Jones  .  .     Studies  in  Mystical  Rehgion. 

Prof.  E.  Lehmann       .  .     Mysticism     in     Heathendom     and 

Christendom       (translated       by 
G.  M.  G.  Hunt). 

R.  A.  Vaughan  .  .     Hours  with  the  Mystics. 

Baron  F.  von  Hiigel.  .     The  Mystical  Element  of  Rehgion, 

2  vols. 

William  James.  .  .     The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experi- 

ence (Gifford  Lectures). 

Dr.  H.  B.  Workman  .     Christian  Thought  to  the  Reforma- 

tion, esp.  chs.  ii.,  vi.-ix. 

E.  Underhill      .  .  .     Mysticism. 

A.  B.  Sharpe     .  .  .     Mysticism :    Its  True  Nature  and 

Value. 

Lesser  books  of  a  general  type  are  : 

W.  Major  Scott  .  .     Aspects  of  Christian  Mysticism. 

E.  C.  Gregory  .  .  .An  Introduction  to  Christian  Mys- 

ticism. 

Dr.  W.  R.  Inge         .         .     Light,   Life  and  Love.     Selections 

from       the      German      Mystics 
(Library  of  Devotion). 

II.  The  books  that  follow  are  concerned  with  individual  mystics, 
or  schools  of  Mysticism.  Editions  of  such  classics  as  readily  suggest 
themselves  and  are  easily  procurable,  e.g.,  St.  Augustine's  "  Con- 
fessions ",  the  "  Imitatio  ",  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  ",  Fox's  " Diary", 
the  "  Christian  Year",  are  not  included.  The  same  is  true  as  regards 
works  of  and  on  the  English  poets  of  the  seventeenth  to  nineteenth 
centuries,  cited  in  the  following  pages. 

The  Alexandrines        .  -     The  Christian  Platonists  of  Alex- 

andria   (Bampton    Lectures),  by 
Dr.  C.  Bigg. 

'^65 


266 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Neo-Platonism  . 

Plotinus    . 

St.  Bernard 

St.  Francis  of  Assisi 

Theologia  Germanica 

Tauler 


Thomas  k  Kempis 


Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole 

Julian  of  Norwich 
Walter  Hylton  . 

St.  Catherine  of  Siena 


Neoplatonism        (Chief        Ancient 

Pliilosophies  Series), by  Dr.C.Bigg. 
Select  Works  of  Plotinus  (transl.  by 

Thomas  Taylor). 
The  Life  and  Times  of  St.  Bernard, 

by  J.  Cotter  Morison. 
The  Little  Flowers   of   St.  Francis 

(transl.  by  T.  W.  Arnold.  Temple 

Classics) . 
Edited    by    Susanna    Winkworth. 

Preface  by  C.   Kingsley  (Golden 

Treasury  Series). 
History  and  Life  of  the  Rev.  Doctor 

J.  Tauler,  with  twenty-five  of  his 

sermons      transl.     by     Susanna 

Winkworth.      Preface      by      C. 

Kingsley. 
The  Inner  Way,  thirty-six  sermons 

(transl.  with  Introduction  by  Rev. 

A.  W.  Hutton.  Library  of  Devo- 
tion). 
Thomas  a  Kempis  :    His  Age  and 

Book,    by    J.    E.    G.    de    Mont- 
morency. 
Thomas  a  Kempis  and  the  Brothers 

of    the    Common    Life,    by    S. 

Kettlewell. 
Hidden  Saints,  by  G.  Harvey  Gem. 
Works  of  Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole 

and    liis    followers.     Edited    by 

C.  Horstman,  2  vols.  (Library  of 

Early  EngUsh  Writers). 
Revelations       of      Divine       Love. 

Edited  by  Grace  Warrack. 
The   Scale  of   Perfection.     Edited, 

with   an    Introduction,   by   Rev. 

J.  B.  Dalgairtis. 
The  Dialogue  of  Catherine  of  Siena, 

transl.  with  an  Introduction,  by 

Algar  Thorold. 
St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  by  Edmund 

Gardner. 
St.  Catherine  of   Siena  as  seen  iu 

her    Letters.      Edited    by  Vida 

Scudder. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


267 


Saint  Teresa 


St.  John  of  the  Cross 


M.  de  Molinos  . 

St.  Francis  de  Sales 

Mme.  Bourignan 
Mme.  Guy  on 


Sir  T.  Browne  . 
T.  Traherne 
John  Bunyan    . 
George  Fox 
Cambridge  Platonists 
J.  Behmen 


Santa  Teresa,  by  G.  Cunninghame 
Graham,  2  vols. 

Life  of  St.  Teresa,  written  by  Her- 
self, transl.  by  D.  Lewis,  with 
Introduction  by  B.  Zimmerman. 

The  Interior  Castle :  transl.  by 
the  Benedictines  of  Stanbrook 
Abbe}',  with  Notes  by  B.  Zimmer- 
man. 

Life  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  by  D. 
Lewis. 

The  Ascent  of  Mt.  Carmel ; 

The  Dark  Night  of  the  Soul ;  both 
transl.  by  D.  Lewis  with  Intro- 
duction by  B.  Zimmerman. 

The  Spiritual  Guide.  (Edited  with 
Introduction  by  C.  Lyttelton. 
Library  of  Devotion). 

Introduction  to  the  Devout  Life 
(transl.  with  Notes  by  Rev.  T. 
Barns.   Library  of  Devotion). 

Antoinette  Bourignan,  Quietist,  by 
A.  R.  MacEwen. 

Life,  Religious  Opinions  and  Ex- 
perience of  Mme.  Guyon,  by  T.  C. 
Upham,  with  Introduction  by 
W.  R.  Inge. 

A  Short  and  Easy  Method  of  Prayer 
(Heart  and  Life  Booklets). 

Religio  Medici  and  Urn  Burial 
(Temple  Classics). 

Centuries  of  Meditations.  Edited 
by  Bertram  Dobell. 

Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chief  of 
Sinners  (R.T.S.). 

George  Fox,  by  T.  Hodgkin,  D.C.L. 
(Leaders  of  Religion). 

Men  of  Latitude  in  the  Seventeenth 
Century,  by  E.  A.  George. 

The  Life  and  Doctrines  of  Jacob 
Boehme,  by  F.  Hartmann. 

The  Signature  of  All  Things  with 
other  Writings.  Introduction 
by  ^  Clifford  Bax  (Everyman's 
Library). 


268  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Wm.  Law  .  .  .     Law,    Nonjuror    and    Mystic,    by 

Canon  J.  H.  Overton. 
The  Liberal  and  Mystical  Writings 
of  W.  Law.     Edited  by  W.  Scott 
Palmer. 

Coventry  Patmore     .  .     The  Rod,  The  Root,  and  the  Flower. 

One  or  two  notes  may  be  added  to  the  foregoing,  and  necessarily 
partial,  selection  of  books.  Fr.  Sharpe's  work  on  Mysticism  contains 
a  translation  of  the  "  Mystical  Theology  "  of  Dionysius  the  Areopa-  - 
gite.  Baron  von  Hiigel  makes  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa  his  text.  1| 
Professor  R.  Jones'  "  Studies  "  gives  an  admirable  account  of  the 
movement  of  the  "  Friends  of  God  ",  and  throws  much  hght  on 
mystical  thought  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Barclay's  "  Inner 
Life  of  the  ReUgious  Societies  of  the  Commonwealth  "  and  Mr. 
L.  H.  Berens'  "  The  Digger  Movement  in  the  Days  of  the  Common- 
wealth "  should  be  consulted  on  the  same  subject.  Isaak  Walton's 
exquisite  "  Lives  "  are,  of  course,  indispensable  to  those  who  would 
understand  the  life  of  the  English  Church  of  the  period,  and  Pro- 
fessor Dowden's  "  Puritan  and  Anghcan  "  selects  for  sympathetic 
criticism  what  was  best  and  lasting  in  the  religious  thought  on  both 
sides  in  the  great  duel  of  that  century.  Miss  Stephens'  "  Quaker 
Strongholds  "  is  an  attractive  presentment  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
"  Inner  Light  ".  With  regard  to  certain  subjects  more  or  less  con- 
nected with  Mysticism,  Mr.  A.  E.  Waite's  works  on  "  The  Holy 
Graal  "  and  "  Studies  in  Mysticism  ",  though  marred  by  preciosities 
of  style,  are  well  worth  examination.  The  reader  anxious  for 
further  information  is  referred  to  the  excellent  and  well-nigh  exhaust- 
ive Bibliography  appended  to  Miss  Underbill's  book,  "  Mysticism  ". 


GENERAL    INDEX 


Abelard,  Peter,  103 

Affective  faculty.  The,  no 

Albertus  Magnus,  104,  107,  109, 
III,   119,   123 

Alcantara,  St  Peter  of,  163,  166 

Alexandria,  53,  62,  63  ;  Cateche- 
tical School  of,  54 

Alexandria,  St  Clement  of,  19, 
20,  40,  52,  53-58,  62,  79  ;  the 
"Stromateis  "  and  "  The  Peda- 
gogue ",  54  ;  his  use  of  Mystery- 
terms,  55-56 ;  his  idea  of 
"salvation  ",  56  ;  doctrine  of 
the  Apathy,  62,  93 

Alexandrianism,  51-60,  61-63  '> 
its  merits  and  defects,  60 

Allegories,  Rulman  Merswin's, 
131;  John  Bunyan's,  7,  219,221 

Allegorism,  7,  39,  40,  59,  102, 
108,  221 ;  compared  with  Sym- 
bolism, 39 

Amalric  of  Bena,  98  note,  104, 107 

Amelius,  77 

Ammonius   Saccas,    63,    65,    77 

Analysis,  57 

Analogy  or  Correspondence, 
Theory  of,  243,  244 

Anchorites,  145,  146-147 

"  Ancren  Riwle  ",    The,    147 

Angela  of  FoUgno,  144 

Antithesis,  The  Law  of,  237,  239 

Antithesis,  and  S5aithesis,  Law 
of  Thesis,  238,  259 

Antoine  Yvan,  13 

Antoinette    Dourignan,    175 


Apathy,'The,    62,    68   and   note, 

93 
Aquinas,    St   Thomas,    89,    104, 

107,   109,   119,   123,  260 
Aristotle,  first  read  in  the  West 

in  Latin  translations,  105  note 
Arminianism  opposed  by  George 

Fox,  227 
Arnold,  Mathew,  46,  252 
Ascent,  Stages  of  mystical,  18-20, 

84,  135,  140,  160 
Asceticism,  16,   18,   127-128 
Assisi,  St.  Francis  of,  see  Francis 
Attraction    and    Diffusion,    The 

Law  of,  237-238 
Augustine,  St.,  15,  19,  43,  61,  71, 

72,  76,  78-79,  80-87,  93.  119 ; 

as  a  psychologist,  81  ;  his  early 
'    Manicheeism   and    Neo-Plato- 

nism,  81-82  ;    his    conversion, 
>  83  ;  his  psychic  faculty,  83  ;  his 

insistence  on  Love  rather  than 

Knowledge    in    the    approach 

to    God,     84-85  ;      Augustine 

and  Monnica,  85-87 
"  Aurora  ",  The,  of  Jacob  Beh- 

men,  232 
Autobiography,  Suso's,    127-129 
Avignon,   Papal  Court  at,    154, 

155  ;    St.  Catherine  of  Siena's 

visit  to,   156 


"  Babylonish   Captivity  ",    The, 
154-156 


269 


270 


GENERAL   INDEX 


Baring,  Maurice,  quoted,  248 
note 

Basilides,  50,  93,  235 

Baxter  on  William  Dell,  213 
note 

Beghards,  Beguines,  105-106 ; 
Beghard  teaching,   106-107 

Begue,  Lambert  le,   105 

Behmen,  Jacob,  231-239,  240, 
242,  244,  252  ;  his  life,23i-232  ; 
his  books,  232  ;  divergent 
judgments  of  his  work,  233  ; 
his  symbolism  and  theosophy, 
234,  238  ;  his  two  principles  : 
(i)  man  a  microcosm,  236- 
237  ;  (2)  the  law  of  Antithesis, 
238 ;  his  doctrine  of  evil, 
238. 

Bemerton,   194,  203,  250 

Bena,  Amalric  of.     See  Amalric 

Benedict  XIV,  Pope,  "  De 
Canonisatione  " ,  22  note,  70 

Berengar,  Eucharistic  doctrine 
of,  98,  note 

Bernard,  St.,  10,  34,  102-104, 
117;  the  symbolism  of  his 
"  Sermons  on  the  Canticles," 
102-103  ;  his  stages  of  love, 
103  ;  his  definition  of  Faith 
quoted,  103 

Bible,  The ;  its  influence  in 
England  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, 183,  216 

Blake,  William,  231,  242-244 

Bohler,  247 

Bohme,    Jacob.    See    Behmen 

Bona  Ventura,  St.,  10,  12,  109- 
iio,  123 

Bossuet,  173-175  ;  attacks  Mme. 
Guyon,  1 73-1 74  ;  and  Fenelon, 

174 
Brethren  of  the  Common  Life, 

The,   137-143  : 

Brethren    of    the    Free    Spirit, 

The,   105 


Brethren,  The  Moravian,  247 
and  note 

Bridegroom,  Idea  of  Christ  as, 
34,  no,  134-135.  154;  of  the 
Church,  then  of  the  soul,  34, 
103 

Bridegroom,  Idea  of  God  as,  of 
the  soul,  35,  187  note,  260,  261 

Bridget  of  Sweden,  St.,   155 

Brown,  T.  E.,  24,  252 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  183-190, 
194,  205  ;  his  life,  184-185  ; 
his  writings,  185-186  ;  his 
faith,  186;  thoughts  on  Prayer, 
187  ;  on  God  and  Nature,  188  ; 
on   death   and   Heaven,    189 

Browning,  Robert,  10,  14,  24, 
36,  251 

Bunyan,  John,  7,  39, 46,  214-221; 
his  spiritual  struggles,  217- 
220  ;  his  conversion,  220  ;  the 
"Pilgrim's  Progress",  215,  216, 
219 ;  the  "  Grace  Abounding  ", 
215,  217-220,  232,  247 

"  Burial,  Urn ";  Sir  Thomas 
Browne's,  186 

Caird's,   ProfesSor,  definition  of 

Mysticism,  3 
"  Call,  Serious,"  William  Law's, 

239-240 
Calvinism    opposed    by    George 

Fox,  223 
Cambridge   Platonists,  The.   See 

Platonists. 
Canticles,  St.  Bernard's  Sermons 

on  the,  34,  102-103 
"  Carmel,  the  Ascent  of   Mt.  ", 

169,  170 
Carlstadt,  condemned  by  Luther, 

162 
Carmelites,    The  Discalced,  167, 

168 
Catherine    of  Genoa,    St.,    144, 

15&-158 


GENERAL    INDEX 


271 


Catherine  of  Siena,  St.,  153-156 

Celsus,  66 

Cennick,  John,  247 

Chivalry,   100 

Christ  as  Bridegroom,  See  Bride- 
groom 

Christ,  Doctrine  of  the  Inward, 
207,  229,  236-237,  24T,  248 

Christianity  and  the  Mysteries, 
55-57  ;  and  Plotinus,  64-66, 
67,  70-71  ;  and  Neo-Platonism, 
76-97  ;  and  Mohammedanism, 
100 

"ChristianMorals",  Browne's,  185 

"  Christian  Year,  The  ",  203,  250 

Christina  of  Sweden,  Queen, 
quoted,  6,  note 

Christology  of  St  Paul,  31-35  ;  of 
St.  John,  37-38,  42-43. 

Citeaux,    Monastery   of,    102 

City  as  goal.  Idea  of,  45-46, 
82,  215,  221 

Clair vaux,  Monastery  of,   102 

Clares,  The  Poor,   115 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  St.  See 
Alexandria 

"  Cloud  upon  the  Sanctuary, 
The  ",  242 

Clough,  A.  H.,  252 

Clugny,  Monastery  of,   102 

Coleridge,   S.  T.,   252-253 

"  Confessions "  of  Augustine, 
81-87 

Contact  with  the  Divine,  Im- 
mediacy   of.    See    Immediacy 

Contemplation,  52,  62,  108,  126, 
135,   160,  166,  172,  176,  211, 

255 
Convention,   The   Keswick,   248 
Conversion,      St.      Paul's,      30  ; 

Augustine's,  83  ;  Tauler's,  125  ; 

Gerard         Groote's,  136 ; 

Catherine    of    Genoa's,     157 ; 

Teresa's,  164  ;  Bunyan's,  220  ; 

Fox's,  224-225 


Corderius,  Balthazar,    89,   104 
Correspondence,  Theory  of,  243, 

244 
Cosmic  Principle,  St  Paul's  doc- 
trine  of   Christ   as   the,    32 
Cosmic  Poet,  Tennyson  as  a,  257 
Council   of  the  Lateran   defines 

Dogma  of  Transubstantiation, 

112 
Council     of     Vienne     condemns 

heresy  of  the  Free  Spirit,  106 
Cousin's,    Victor,    definition    of 

Mysticism,  3  ;  criticism  of,  6 
Coventry  Patmore.  See  Patmore 
Crashaw,  Richard,  35,  164,  194, 

201-203 
Criticisms  on  Mysticism,  6-7 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  205,  206,  224, 

226,  228 
Crusades,  The,  45,  100-10 1,  102, 

113 
Cult  of  Poverty,  The,  See  Poverty 

"  Dark  Night  of  the  Soul,  The  ", 

18,  70,  169-170 
Dark,   The   Divine,    16,   94   and 

note,  no,  135,  160,  201,  238, 
David  of  Dinant,  104 ;  condemned 

by  Albertus  Magnus  and  St. 

Thomas  Aquinas,   107 
Death,    Preoccupation   with,    in 

the  seventeenth  century,   183, 

186,  197 
Definitions    of    Mysticism,    3-7, 

9,  23,  40 
Deification,   Idea  of,    19-20,  56, 

209,  246  and  note 
Deism  opposed  by  teaching   of 

William  Law,  240-241 
Dell,  William,  229-230 
Denys,  St.,  identified  with  Diony- 

sius  the  Areopagite,  go 
Denys,  St.,  Hilduin,  Abbot  of,  90 
Deventer,    Thomas    a    Kempis 

at,  137 


272 


GENERAL   INDEX 


Differentia  of  Mysticism,  The 
Ecstasy  as  the,  6,  20 

Diffusion,  Law  of  Attraction 
and,  237-238 

Digby,    Sir   Kenelm,    185 

Diggers'  Movement,  The,  214, 
228 

Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  St., 
12,  34,  61,  76,  89-95  '>  dispute 
on  his  identity  and  date,  90-91 ; 
his  scholastic  commentators, 
104;   influences  Eckhart,   119 

"  Discourse  of  Vulgar  Errors," 
Sir  T.  BroAvne's,  185 

"  Discourse  on  the  Supersensual 
Life  ",  Behmen's,  237. 

Disillusionment  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,   182 

Disinterested  Love,  Doctrine  of, 
62,  174-177 

"  Divine  Dialogue  ",  The,  of  St. 
Catherine  of  Siena,   156 

Doctrine  of  the  Fiinkelein  or 
Spark.  See  Fiinkelein  : 
of  the  Inner  Light.  See  Light: 
of  the  Logos,  12,  37,  58,  64, 
80,  121,  241  ;  St  John's  com- 
pared -with.  Philo's,  37-39  : 
of  Passivity,  21,  70  note,  no, 
123,  126,  129,   166-167,   172 

Dominic,  The  Order  of  St.,  120, 

125.  154 
Donne,    John,    183,    194-199 
DouceUne,  St.,  116 
Dualism  of  Gnosticism,  50  ;    of 

Manicheeism,      81  ;      rejected 

by  Dionysius,  92 

Eckhart,  8,  10,  61,  107,  1 19-124, 
132  ;  his  hfe,  120  ;  his  teaching 
suspected  of  heresy,  121,  122  ; 
teaches  the  Divine  Imman- 
ence in  the  soul,  123  ;  his 
doctrine  of  the  "  Fiinkelein," 
123 


Eckhartshausen,  242. 

Ecstasy,  The,  6,  20-24,  28,  35- 
36,  49,  67-71,  79,  88,  109,  119, 
127-128,  152,  160,  166,  202, 
209,    211,    232,    255,    257-258 

Eleusis,  Mysteries  of,  9,  55 

Emerson,   245  ;  quoted,   221 

English  ]\Iysticism,  its  character- 
istics in  the  Middle  Ages,  144- 
147  ;  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, 179-183  ;  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  248-263  ;  its 
connexion  with  poetry,  161, 
178,  194-204,  251-261 

Erigena,  12,  61,  95-97,  98,  119; 
translates  Dionysius  Areop. 
into  Latin,  90 

"  Eros,    The   Unknown,"    259 

"  Eternal  Gospel,"  The,  106 
note 

Evangelicalism,  its  afl&nities 
with  Mysticism,  247-248 

Evil,  Problem  of,  14 ;  Origen 
on,  59 ;  Plotinus  on,  64  ; 
Proclus  on,  75  ;  Dionysius 
on,  92  ;  Erigena  on,  96 ; 
Behmen  on,  238 

Ewald's  definition  of  Mysticism, 
3  ;  quoted,   1 8 

Experience,  Mysticism  an,  9,  29, 
132,  229 

Faith  and  Reason,   St.  Bernard 

on,  103 
Family  of  Love,  The,  214 
Felicitas,  St.,  48 
Fenelon,  Archbishop,   173-177 
Ferrar,  Nicholas,   194,   197,  203 
Ferrars  at  Little  Gidding,  The, 

183,  194,  201,  204,  217  note 
Flagellants,  The,  130 
Florentius  Radewin,  137 
Floris,    Joachim    of,    106     note, 

229 
Foligno,  Angela  of,   144 


GENERAL   INDEX 


273 


"  Four  Marks  "  of  Mysticism, 
Henry  James',  4,  5,  21,  31, 
36,  128,  232  ;  Miss  Underbill's 
criticism,  5 

Fox,  George,  214,  221-227,  252  ; 
his  life,  223-226  ;  his  psychic 
gift,  226  ;  the  doctrine  of  the 
Inner  Light,  223,  227  ;  of 
personal  holiness,  2 2 7,  231,  232, 

237.  247 
Francis  of  Assisi,  St.,    114-117, 

154.  156 
Francis  of  Osuna,  166 
Francis  of  Sales,  St.,  1 71-172 
Franciscan      ideals      and      the 

Brethren     of     the     Common 

Life,  141-142 
Friars,  Minor,  The,  11 4-1 15 
Friends,  The  Society  of,  210,  212, 

214,  226  note,    227'  and  note, 

228 
Friends  of  God,  The,  125,  130- 

131,  133 

Fiinkelein,  Doctrine  of  the,  18, 
no,  123,  126,  253 

"  Garden   of   Cyrus,  The ",    Sir 

T.  Browne's,  185 
Genoa,     St.    Catherine    of.   See 

Catherine 
Gerard  Groote,    133,    134,    136- 

137 
"  Germanica,    Theologia  " .     See 

"  Theologia  " 
Gersen,   Abbot  of  Vercelli,    138 
Gerson,  Jean,  10,  107,  iio-iii, 

138 
Gertrude  of  Helfde,  118 
Gertrude   the   Great,    St.,  118 
Gnosticism,  49-51,  59,   235 
Gordian's  expedition  to  Persia, 

63-64 
Gottschalk,  95 
Graal   Legend,    The,    112,    120, 

256  note 

NLC. 


"Grace    Abounding",    7,     215, 

217-221 
Gregory  the  Great,  Pope,  89 
Gregory  VII,  Pope,   10 1 
Gregory  XI,  Pope,  155-156 
"  Ground,  The  Waste  ",  16,    32, 

121,  124,   127,  210  note 
"  Guide,  The  Spiritual  ",   172 
Guyon,  Mme.,  173-175 

Hackborn,    Mechthild    of,    118- 

119 
Haemerlein,  Thomas.  See  Kempis 
Harnack  on  Mysticism,   6,   19 ; 

on    Neo-Platonism,     61  ;     on 

Augustine,  80-81 
Heraclitus  quoted,  237 
Herbert,  George,  183,  194,  197, 

199,  203-204,  250 
Hermann  on  Mysticism,  6 
Hierarchies   of   Dionysius,    The, 

76.  94-95 
Hierotheus,    76,     87,    90.     See 

Stephen  bar  Sudaili 
Hildegarde,  St.,   118 
Hilduin,  Abbot,  90 
Hinton,  James,  on  Mysticism,  7 
Hohness,     Quaker    doctrine    of 

personal,  227  ;  Lord  Morley  on, 

263 
Honorius  III,  Pope,  98  note 
Hooker,  Richard,  quoted  16 
Hugo  of  St.  Victor.  See  St.  Victor 
Hylton,  Walter,  144,  150-152 
Hypnotization,  Self-,  22,  239 

lamblichus,  64,  71,  72,  91,  252 
Idea  of  a  Revelation  in  Plotinus, 

The,  69-70 
Idea  of  Salvation  in  St.  Clement 

of  Alexandria,  The,  56 
Ignatius,  St.,  quoted,  90 
Ignatius  Loyola,   139,   161 
Illumination,  Stage  of,  18-19,  §4. 

160,  25  I 


274 


GENERAL   INDEX 


"  Imitatio  Christi",    The,     iii, 

137-142  ;     dispute    as    to    its 

authorship,   137-138;  Is  it  a 

mystical  work  ?    1 40-1 41  ;    its 

influence,   139-140 
Immanence,  Divine,  11-12,  no, 

207,  211,  237,  241-242 
Immediacy  of  Contact  with  the 

Divine,  10,  11,  15,  21,  29,  49, 

204 
ImmortaUty     and     Deification, 

Ideas  of,  56 
Influence     of      the     Bible      in 

seventeenth  century  England, 

183,  216 
Influence  of  the  Jesuits  on  later 

Latin  Mysticism,  163 
Influence   of  Neo-Platonism   on 

Christianity,  76-97 
Inge,  Dean,  on  the  Ecstasy,  23 
"  Inglesant,    John,"    172    note ; 

quoted   on  Crashaw,   201  ;    on 

Henry  More,  207,  208 
Inner    Light,    Doctrine    of    the. 

See  Light 
Intellectual    Expansion    of    the 

seventeenth  century,  1 81-182 
Interdict  of  1329,  The,  125,  131 
"  Interior  Castle  ",  St.   Teresa's, 

167 
Inward  Christ,  The  Doctrine  of 

the,    207,    236-237,    241,    248 
Irenaeus,  19,  quoted  127 

Jacob    Behmen.      See    Behmen 
Jacobi  quoted,  26 
Jacopone    da  Todi,    116,    156 
James,       Henry,      his      "  Four 

Marks  of  Mysticism".  See  Four 

Marks 
James,  St.,  13,  44 
Jesuits,    Rise   and   Influence   of 

the,  163 
Joachim    of    Floris,    106     note, 

229 


John,  St.,  Mysticism  of,  10,  36- 
43  ;  symbolism  of,  39-43 

John  of  the  Cross,  St.,  18,  167- 
171,  260  ;  his  hfe  and  suffer- 
ings, 168-169  ;  the  "  Dark 
Night  of  the  Soul  ",  169  ;  its 
goal  the  Divine  Union,  170  ; 
comparison  with  Dionysius, 
171 

John  Scotus.  See  Erigena 

Jowett's  definition  of  Mysticism, 

4 
JuUan  of  Norwich,  11,  144,  145, 

148-150,  247 
Julian  the  Apostate,  72,  73 

Kabbalists,  The,  245 

Keble,  John,  136,  203,  250-251 

Kempe,  Margery,  145 

Kempis,   Thomas   a,    133,    137- 

142 
Keswdck  Convention,   The,   248 
Khayyam,  Omar,  245 
Kingsley,  Charles,  on  Mysticism, 

4  ;    as  poet,  252 
Knowledge,     Divine,     Plotinus' 

teaching  on,  67,  71  ;  compared 

with  Augustine's,  84 

Lambert  le  Begue,   105 
Lasson's  definition  of  Mysticism, 

3 

"  Latitudinarians,    The",    205 

Law,  William,  38,  233,  239- 
242,  252 

"  Law  of  the  Ternary  ",  The,  74 

Levellers,  The,  214 

Libertinism  a  danger  to  Panthe- 
ism, 14  ;  found  in  Pantheistic 
sects  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
106 

"  Life  of  Man,  The  Threefold  ", 
Behmen's,  232 

Light,  Henry  Vaughan  on,  200- 
201 


GENERAL   INDEX 


275 


Light,    Doctrine    of   the    Inner, 

211-212,   214,   222,   223,   227, 

229,  237 
Logos  Doctrine,  The,  12,  37,  38, 

58,   64,   80,   121,   241  ;   in  St. 

John,  and  in  Philo,  37-39 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  13,  245  and 

note 
Love,  St  Augustine's  insistence 

on,  84-85 
Love,  St.  Bernard's  Four  Stages 

of,  103 
Love,  Nuptial,  used  as  a  symbol 

by    Coventry    Patmore,     35, 

134.  259.  261 
Love,    The    Doctrine    of    Dis- 
interested.   See    Disinterested 

Love 
Love,  The  Family  of,  214 
"  Love,  The  Spirit  of  ",  William 

Law's,  240 
Luther  on  Mysticism,  162 
Lynn,  The  Anchoress  of,   145 


Maeterlinck,  246 ;  quoted,  63, 
133,  134.  250 

Magic  and  Mysticism,  7,  71,  72, 
84,  136 

Manicheeism,  early,  of  Augus- 
tine, 81 

Mass,  The  Mystery  of  the,  in 
the     Middle     Ages,     11 2-1 13 

"  Maxims  of  the  Saints  ",  Fene- 
lon's,  174,  176 

Maximus,  72 

Mechthild  of  Magdeburg,  118, 119 

"  Meditations,  Centuries  of ", 
Traherne's,  190  {see  note)-ig^ 

Merswin,  Rulman,   131 

Meynell,  Mrs.,  on  Coventry  Pat- 
more,  259 

Microcosm,  Man  a,  13,  33,  96, 
236 

Milton,  quoted,  40 


Miraculous,  Mysticism  and  the, 

8 
Modernism  and  Mysticism,  262- 

263 
Modernism,  Coleridge's  affinities 

to,  253 
Mohammed,  26,  245  and  note 
MoUnos,    Miguel    de,     172-173, 

175 

Monasteries,  Reform  and  in- 
fluence of,  in  the  West,   10 1 

Monnica,  St.,  83,  85-87 

Montanus,  48-49 

Montanism  and  Mysticism,  47- 

49 
Moody  and  Sankey,  Messrs.,  248 
Moravians,  The.     See  Brethren 
More,  Henry,  13,  183,  207-210, 

233 

Morley,   Lord,  on  hoUness,   263 

Mount  St.  Agnes,   138,    139 

"  Mount  Carmel,  The  Ascent  of", 
169,  170 

Muggletonians,  The,  214 

Murray,  Andrew,  248 

Mysteries,  The  Pagan,  9,  55  ; 
their  connexion  with  Mysti- 
cism, 8,  55-57.  62 

"  Mysterium  Magnum  ",  Beh- 
men's,  232,  235 ;  compared 
with  Paracelsus',  235 

Mysticism,  Definitions  of,  3-7, 
9,  23,  27  note 

Mysticism,  Objections  to,  6,  7 

Mysticism  in  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels, 27-29  ;  in  St.  Paul,  30- 
36  ;    in  St.  John,  36-43 

Mysticism  and  Scholasticism. 
See  Scholasticism 

Nature-Mysticism,  12,  194,  199- 
200  ;  of  St.  Francis  11 5-1 16  ; 
of  Browne,  188  ;  of  Traherne, 
1 91-193  ;  of  Keble,  250  ;  of 
T.  E.  Brown,  252  ;  of  Words- 


276 


GENERAL    INDEX 


worth,  254-255  ;  of  Tennyson, 

256-257 
Neale,   Dr.,   40   note,   249 
Negativa,    Via,  The,    15-16,   93, 

96,    109,  127,    160,   170,    171, 

204,  210 
Neo-Platonism,    61-76 ;    its    in- 
fluence on  Christianity,  76-97 
Neo-Platonists,     The,     and     St. 

John  of  the  Cross,   171 
Nettleship,  R.  S.,  quoted,  40 
Newton's  study  of  Behmen,  233 
"  Night  of  the  Soul,  The  Dark  ", 

18,  70,  169-170 
NihiHsm,  88,  92,  170 
Noack's  definition  of  Mysticism, 

23 
Numenius,  77 

Occultism  and  Mysticism,  7 
"  Odes,  The  ",  of  Coventry  Pat- 
more,  259,  260 
Oneness  of  God,  Mysticism  and 

the,  II,  14,  57,  232 
Origen,   19,  40,   58-60,   88    note 
Orison  of  Quiet,  The.  See  Prayer 
Ortlieb  of  Strassbourg,   105 
Oxford     Movement,     The,     and 
Mysticism,  210,  249-250 

Paganism,  First  appearance  of 
name  of,  73  ;    Proclus  and,  75 

Panentheism,   14 

Pantaenus,  53 

Pantheism,  14,  98,  120  ;  a  dan- 
ger to  Mysticism,  5,  6, 14,  116  ; 
avoided  by  Dionysius,  92  ;  out- 
come of  the  Beghards'  teach- 
ing,   106 ;     Eckhart  and,    122 

Paracelsus,  233,  234  and  note,  235 

Passivity.  See  Doctrine 

Patmore,  Coventry,  10,  24,  242, 
258-261  ;  his  symbolism,  35, 
134,  259,  261  ;  his  definition  of 
Mysticism,  4  ;  quoted,  4,  5,  260 


Patrick,  Bishop,  on  John  Smith, 

210,    2X1 

Paul,  St.,  Mysticism  of,  20,  30- 
36,  239 

Penn,  William,  183,  225,  228 
note 

"  Perfection,  The  Way  of  ",  167 

Perfectionis,  Scala,  The,  18-20, 
179,  246 

Perpetua,  St.,  49 

Persia,  Flight  of  Athenian  philo- 
sophers to,  88  note 

Person  of  Christ,  Devotion  to 
the ;  Medieval,  100,  149,  150, 
151  ;     Evangelical,  247-248 

Peter,  St.,  28  note,  30,  44 

Peter  of  Alcantara,  St.,  163,  166 

Pfleiderer's  definition  of  Mysti- 
cism, 3 

Philo,  37  note,  51-52  ;  his  teach- 
ing compared  with  St.  John's, 
37-38 

Philosophy,  Mysticism  a,  6 
note 

Pilgrimage,  The  Idea  of,  in 
Christian  thought,  44-46,  152 

"  Pilgrim's  Progress,  The",  7,  46, 
215,  2x6,  217,  219 

Plato's  "  Timaeus  ",  Influence  of, 
in  second  century,    50 

Platonists,  The  Cambridge,  13, 
178,  204-212,  231,  253 

Plotinus,  8,  20,  21,22,79, 204,  252, 
261  ;  his  life,  63-71  ;  his  indif- 
ference to  Christianity,  64-66  ; 
his  philosophy,  64,  66,  75,  76  ; 
his  teaching  on  the  Ecstasy, 
20,  22  note,  23,  67-71  ;  his  view 
of  Evil,  64  ;  his  "  Enneads  " 
translated  by  Victorinus,  78  ; 
his  influence  on  Augustine,  78 

Poets,  The  Caroline,  199-204 

Poetry  and  EngUsh  Mysticism, 
161,  178,  194-204,  251-261 

Poor  Clares,  The,  115 


GENERAL   INDEX 


277 


Porphyry,  63,  65,  O9,  71,  72 
Poverty,  The  Cult  of,  105,  112, 

114-115,  134 
Prayer  and  Faith,  St,  Clement 

on,  58 
Prayer  of  Quiet,  The,  70,   152  ; 

with  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa, 

158 ;     with     St.    Teresa,    70 

note,  163-167 
Prayer,  St  Teresa's  teaching  on  ; 

its  four  stages,  165 
"  Prayer,    Short    Method    of ", 

Mme.  Guyon's,   173 
"  Prayer,  The  Spirit  of",  William 

Law's,  240 
"  Prayer,    Instructions    on    the 
State  of",  Bossuet's,  174 
Prayer,  S.  T.  Coleridge  on,  253 
Predestination,  Gottschalk's 

teaching  on,  95  and  note 
Pre-Raphaelites,  The,  251 
"  Principles,  Three  ",  Behmen's, 

332 
Pringle-Pattison,  Professor  Seth, 

on  Mysticism,  3  ;    criticism  of 

Mysticism,  6 
Proclus,  73-75,  76,  87,  91 
Psychic  faculty  a  factor  in  Mys- 
ticism, The,  24,  83,  148,  210, 

225-226,  252,  258 
Psychic  faculty  in  St.  Augustine, 

The,  83  ;  in  Henry  More,  210  ; 

in  Fox,  225-226 
Psychopathic  states  of  St.  Cath- 
erine of  Genoa,  157,   158 
Psychology  of  Plotinus,  The,  66, 

74,  78 
Purgative  Stage  in  the  Mystical 
Ascent,  The,  18,  65,  84,  160, 
255 

Quakers,     The.       See    Friends, 

Society  of 
"  Quellgeister  ",  The,  of  Behmen, 

235  and  note 

MC 


Quietism,  6 ;  in  Tauler,  126 ; 
in  St.  Teresa,  164-167  ;  in  St. 
John  of  the  Cross,  169-170  ; 
in  St.  Francis  de  Sales,  171  ; 
in  Molinos,  172-173  ;  in  Mme. 
Guyon,  173-175  ;  in  Mme. 
Bourignan  1 75  ;  in  Winstanley 
228 

Radewin,  Florentius,  137 

Ranters,  The,  214 

''  Raptus  "  or  Rapture,  The.  See 
Ecstasy 

Reason,  Cambridge  Platonists 
on,  204,  207,  212 

Recejac  on  Mysticism,  4 

Reformation,  Effects  of  the,  on 
Mysticism,  159,  160,  178-179, 
246 

Refusal  of  the  oath  and  miUtary 
service  by  Quakers,  227-228 

Relics  in  the  Middle  Ages,  100,1 13 

"  Religio  Medici",  The,  185,  186- 
189 

Renaissance,  Effects  of  the,  on 
human  thought,  159,  1 81-183 

Renan  on  the  authorship  of  the 
"  Imitatio  ",  138 

Revelation,  Plotinus'  idea  of  a, 
69-70 

RevivaUsm,  its  probable  con- 
nexion with  the  War  of 
Secession,  248 

Ribet  on  Mysticism,  3 

Richard  of  St.  Victor.  See  St. 
Victor 

Rieti,  St.  Columba  of,  153 

Ritschlian  School,  The,  on  Mys- 
ticism, 6 

RoUe,  Richard,  145,  147-148 

Rossettis,  The,  251 

Ruysbroek,  Jan,  13,  132-136; 
his  life,  132-134  ;  his  "  Ladder 
of  Love  ",  134  ;  his  "  Ordo 
Spint'ualium  Nupiiaurm",  135 


278 


GENERAL    INDEX 


Sacraments,  S.  T.  Coleridge  on, 

253 
Saint-Martin,  233,  242 
St.  Victor,  Hugo  of,  104,  108 
St.  Victor,  Richard  of,  108-109 
Saltmarsh,  John,  229 
Salvation,  The  Idea  of,  with  the 

Alexandrines,  56 
Saturninus,  50,  235 
"  Scale  of  Perfection",  Hylton's, 

151.  152 
Scholasticism  and  Mysticism,  89, 

104,  107,  160 
Schoolmen,  The  great,   107-111 
Sect  of  the  New  Spirit,  The,  105 
Seekers,  The,  214,  228  and  note 
Self  -  recoUectedness,       Sir      T. 

Browne  on,   187 
Serapeum     of    Alexandria     de- 
stroyed, 73 
Siena,    St.    Catherine     of.      See 

Catherine 
"  Signatura  Rerum  ",  Behmen's, 

232,  237  note 
Silences,  The  Three,  of  Molinos, 

172 
"  Silex       Scintillans  " ,       Henry 

Vaughan's,  199,  201 
Smith,  John,  205,  2 10-2 11 
Soul's     four    activities,    Hylton 

on  the,   151 
Spanish  Mystics,  The  161-171 
Spark,    Doctrine    of     the.      See 

"  Fiinkelein  " 
Spinoza  quoted,   19,   122  ;    Spin- 

ozism  and  William  Law,  241 
"  Spirit  of  Love,  The  ",  240 
"  Spirit  of  Prayer,  The  ",  240 
Spirit,  Brethren  of  the  Free,  105 
Spirit,  Sect  of  the  New,   105 
Spirit,     Dispensation     of     the, 

taught  by  Montanus,  49  ;    by 

Joachim  of  Floris,   106  note  ; 

by  Saltmarsh,  229 
Spiritualism,  23,  71 


Stages  of    Perfection,  The,  18- 

20,  135 
Stephen  bar  Sudaili,  88 
Steps    of    Ascent,    Ruysbroek's 

Seven,  134 
"  Stigmata  ",  The,  154 
Sufis,  The,  245 
"  Supersensual  Life  ",  Behmen's, 

237 
Suso,  Henry,  124,  127-130 
Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  243,  244 
Symbolism,  4,  40-42,  102,  200, 
234,  235,  255;  contrasted  with 
AUegorism,     39 ;      and     with 
Theosophy,   234-235 
Synteresis,  1 10  ;   doctrine  of  the, 

revived  by  Law,  241 
Systems,  Mystical,  of  Neo- 
Platonism,  64,  66-71  ;  Procli- 
anism,  73-75  ;  of  Victori- 
nus,  79-80  ;  Hierotheus,  88  ; 
Dionysius,  91-95  ;  Erigena, 
96  ;  Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  108  ; 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  108- 
109  ;  Albertus  Magnus,  109  ; 
Bona  Ventura,  109-110  ;  Ger- 
son,  iio-iii  ;  Eckhart,  121- 
124;  Tauler,  126-127  ;  Ruys- 
broek,  134-136 
Systems,  General  discontinuance 
of,  by  non-Latin  mystics  after 
the  Reformation,  160,  179 


Tauler,  John,  13,  107,  124-127, 
130,  131,  252  ;  his  life,  125  ; 
his  doctrine,   126-127 

Tennyson,  Lord,  46,  244,  256- 
258,  260  ;  his  nature-mysti- 
cism, 12,  256-257  ;  his  trance- 
experience,  23,  258 

Teresa,  St.,  21,  129,  144,  162-167, 
202,  217  ;  her  conversion  and 
visions,  164 ;  her  Quietism; 
and  "  four  modes  of  Prayer", 


GENERAL    INDEX 


279 


165  ;  the  Prayer  of  Union  and 
doctrine  of  passivity,  166-167 

Tertiaries,  Franciscan,  115,  157, 
261 

TertuUian,  34,  49 

Teutonic  Spirit,  The,  in  the 
Church,  61,   100,   141 

"  Theologia  Germanica  " ,  The,  9, 
131-132,  209 

Theosophy,  234 ;  of  Behmen, 
235,  23S  and  note  ;  of  Sweden- 
borg,  244 

Thesis,  Antithesis,  and  Synthe- 
sis, Law  of.    See  Antithesis. 

Thompson,    Francis,    46,    261 

Thoreau,  210 

"  Torrents,  The",  Mme.  Guyon's, 

173 

Tractarians,  The.  See  Oxford 
Movement 

Traherne,  Thomas,  igo-193, 
194 ;  his  nature-mysticism, 
191-193  ;  his'  thoughts  on 
childhood,  191,  200  ;  on  God, 
192,  193  ;  on  the  Cross  of 
Christ,  192 

Trance-Experience,  The,  67-71 
and  note  ;  of  Wordsworth,  24, 
255  ;     of   Tennyson,    23,    258 

Transcendence,  Divine,  15,  no, 
122,  241 

Transubstantiation,  The  Dog- 
ma of,   112 

Underhill,    Miss,    on   Mvsticism, 

5.  6 
"  Unitas  Fratrum ",  The,   247 
Unitive  Stage,  The,   19,   20-24, 


84,  166-167,  239,  259-261  ;  in 

St.  John,  42,  43 
UniversaUsm,   Origen's,  59 
Valentinus,  50 
Vaughan    the    Silurist,    Henry, 

194,   199-201 
Vaughan,  R.  A.,  on  Mysticism,  7 
Via  Negativa,  The.    See  Negativa 
Victorinus,  61,  76,  78-80 
Vision  and  Visions,  8,  30-31,  49, 

127-129,    149,    152,    156,  231, 

243-244 
Visions,  of  St.  Peter,  28  note  ;  of 

St.  Paul,  31  ;  of  Suso,  129  ;   of 

Julian  of  Norwich,  149  ;  of  St. 

Teresa,  164-165  ;    of  Bunyan, 

220-221  ;    of  Blake,  243 

Waite,  A.  E.,  quoted,  19,  38 
Walton's  "Lives",  Isaak,  196,197 
Warburton,    Bishop,  and    John 

Wesley  on  Behmen,  233,    234 

note 
Weigel,      Valentine,     234,     236 

note 
Whichcote,    Benjamin,    205-207 
Winstanley,    Gerrard,   214,   228, 

231,  237 
Williams,  Isaac,  249 
Wordsworth,  24,  254-256,  260  ; 

his  contemplation  of    Nature, 

254  ;   his  self-discipline,  255 

"Year,    The    Christian".      See 

Christian 
Yvan,  Antoine,  quoted,  13 

Zinzendorf,  247 


INDEX    OF   MYSTICS    AND  MYSTICAL 
GROUPS 


Albertus    Magnus     (Scholastic) , 

104,  107,  109,  119,  123 
Alexandrines,  The,  51-60,  91-63 
Amalric  of    Bena,  98  note,  104, 

107 
Amelius,  77 

Ammonius  Saccas,  63,  65,  77 
Angela   of   Foligno,    144 
Antoine  Yvan  quoted,   13 
Antoinette       Bourignan.        SeOy 

Bourignan 
Aquinas,  St.  Thomas  (Scholastic), 

89,104,  107,  109,  119,123,260 
Arnold,  Mathew,  46,  225 
Augustine,  St.,  15,  ig,  43,  61,  71, 

72,  76,  7S-79,  80-87,  93,  119 

B6ghards    and    Beguines,    The, 

105-107 
Behraen,    Jacob,    231-239,    240, 

242,  244,  252 
Bernard,  St.,  10,  34,  102-104,  117 
Blake,  William,  231,  242-244 
Bohme.     See  Behmen 
Bonaventura,     St.     (Scholastic), 

10,   12,  109-110,  123 
Bourignan,  Antoinette,   175 
Brethren  of  the  Common  Life, 

The,  137-143 
Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  The, 

105 
Brethren,    The     Moravian,    247 

and  note 
Bridget  of  Sweden,  St.,  155 


Brown,  T.  E.,  24,  252 
Browne,   Sir  Thomas,    183-190, 

194,  205 
BrowTiing,    Robert,    10,    14,    24, 

36,  251 
Bunyan,   John,   7,  39,  214-221, 

232,  247 

Cambridge   Platonists,    The,  13, 

178,  204-212,  231,  253 
Carlstadt,   162 
Catherine    of    Genoa,    St.,    144, 

156-158 
Catherine  of  Siena,  St.,  153-156 
Clement  of  Alexandria,   St,    19, 

20,   40,    52,  53-58.    79,    93 
Clough,  A.  H.,  252 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  252-253 
Coventry     Patmore.     See     Pat- 
more 
Crashaw,  Richard,  35,  164,  194, 
201-203 

David  of  Dinant,   104,  107 
Dell,  William,  213  note,  229-230 
Dionysius    the    Areopagite,  St., 
12,  34,  61,  76,  89-95,  104,  119 
Donne,   John,   183,   194-199 
DouceUne,  St.,  116 

Eckhart,  8,  10,61,  107,  1 19-124, 

132 
Eckhartshausen,  242 
Emerson,  245,  quoted  221 


280 


INDEX  OF  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICAL  GROUPS    281 


Erigena,   12,  61,  90,  95-97,  98, 
119 

F^n^lon,  Archbishop,   173-177 
Ferrar,  Nicholas,  183,  194,  197, 

203-204 
Floris,  Joachim,  of,  io6  note,  229 
Fohgno,  Angela  of,  144 
Fox,  George,  214,  221-227,  231, 

232,  237,  247,  252 
Francis  of  Assisi,   St.,  114-117, 

156 
Francis  of  Sales,  St.,  171-172 
Friends,  The  Society  of,  210,  212, 

214,  226  note,  227   and    note, 

228 
Friends  of  God,  The,  125,  130- 

131.  133 

Gerard  Groote,   133,   134,   136- 

137 
Gerson,    Jean    (Scholastic),    10, 

107,  iio-iii,  138 
Gertrude  of  Helfde,  118 
Gertrude  the  Great,  St.,  118 
Guyon,  Madame,   173-175 

Haemerlein,  Thomas.    See  Kem- 

pis 
Herbert,  George,  183,  194,  197, 

199,  203-204,  250 
Hierotheus,  76,  87,  90 
Hildegarde,  St.,  118 
Hugo  of  St.  Victor,   104,   108 
Hylton,  Walter,  144,  150-152 

lamblichus  (Neo-Platonist),  64, 

71,  72,  91,  252 
Ignatius  Loyola,  139,  161 

Jacopone  da  Todi,    116,    156 
James,  St.,  quoted,   13,  44 
Joachim  of  Floris,  106  note,  229 
John,  St.,  ID,  ^6-43 


John  of  the  Cross,  St.,  10,  167- 

171,  260 
John  Scotus.     See  Erigena 
Julian  of  Norwich,  11,  144,  145, 

148-150,  247 

Keble,  John,  136,  203,  250-251 
Kempe,  Margery,  145 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  133,  137-142 
Kingsley,  Charles,  252,  quoted  4 

Law,  William,  38,  233,  239-242, 

252 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  13,  245  and 

note 

MaeterUnck,  M.,  quoted,  63,  133, 

134,  250 
Maximus  (Neo-Platonist),  72 
Mechthild  of  Hackborn,  11 8-1 19 
Mechthild  of  Magdebourg,  118,119 
Merswin,  Rulman,   131 
Molinos,  Miguel  de,  172-173,  175 
Monnica,  St.,  83,  85-87 
Montanus,  48-49 
Moravian     Brethren,    The,    247 

and  note 
More,  Henry,  13,  183,  207-210, 

233 
Murray,  Andrew,  248 

Neo-Platonists,  61-77,   171 
Numenius  (Neo-Platonist),  77 

Origen,   19,  40,  58-60,  88  note 
Ortlieb  of  Strassbourg,   105 

Pantaenus,  53 

Paracelsus,  233,  234  and  note,  235 

Patmore,  Coventry,  4,  10,  24,  35, 

134,  242,  258-261 
Paul,  St.,  20,  30-36,  239 
Penn,  WiUiam,   183,     225,    228 

note 
Perpetua,  St.,  49 


282    INDEX  OF  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICAL  GROUPS 


Peter,  St.,  28  note,  30,  44 
Philo  and  St.  John,  37-38 
Platonists,    The   Cambridge,  13, 

178,  204-212,  231,  253 
Plotinus    (Neo-Platonist),  8,  20, 

21,  22,  63-71,  75,  76,   78,    79, 

204,  252,  261 
Porphyry    (Neo-Platonist),     63, 

65.  69,  71.  72 
Pre-Raphaelites,  The,  251 
Produs   (Neo-Platonist),    73-75, 

76,  87,  91 
Puritan   Mystics,    213-230 

Quakers,  The.     See  Friends 

Richard  of  St.  Victor,   108-109 
Rieti,  St.  Columba  of,   153 
RoUe,   Richard,   145,   147-148 
Rossettis,  The,  251 
Ruysbroek,  Jan,  13,  132-136 

Saint-Martin,  233,  242 

Saltmarsh,  John,  229 

Scholastic  Mystics,  The,  107-111 

School,  The  Alexandrian,  51-60  ; 
The  Neo-Platonist,  61-76 ; 
The  German,  11 8-143;  The 
English  Medieval,  144-152  ; 
The  Italian,  152-158 ;  The 
Spanish,  161-171 ;  The  French, 
17T-177 


Sect  of  the  New  Spirit,  The,  105 
Seekers,  The,  214,  228  and  note 
Smith,  John,  205,  210-21 1 
Spinoza,  quoted,  19,  122 
Stephen  bar  Sudaih,  88 
Suso,  Henry,   124,   127-130 
Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  243-244 

Tauler,  John,  13,  107,  124-127, 

130,  131,  133,  252 
Tennyson,    Lord,    12,    23,    244, 

256-258 
Teresa,  St.,  21,  129, 144, 162-167, 

202,  217 
Thompson,  Francis,  261  ;  quoted, 

46 
Traheme,  Thomas,  190-193,  194, 

200 


Vaughan,  Henry,   194,   199-201 
Victorimis,  61,  76,  78-80 


Weigel,  Valentine,  234,  236  note 
Whichcote,  Benjamin,  205-207 
Winstanley,   Gerrard,   214,   228, 

231.  237 
Wordsworth,  24,  254-256,  260 

Zinzendorf,  247 


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